Local woman recruiting for Women Marines Association
By: KEITH PHUCAS , Times Herald Staff

NORRISTOWN - Montezuma Red is the official lipstick shade for the Marine Corps. Women Marines wearing any other shade risk getting reprimanded.

According to Ginnie Rueber, who served in the Marines from 1962 until 1964, the Elizabeth Arden lipstick was custom made to match the thin red cord on the dress caps worn by women Marines.

"When you were in dress uniform, you had to wear the lipstick," she said.

Rueber went to boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., enduring the grueling six-week training.

"We did push-ups, sit-ups and ran," she said.

During her tour of duty, she worked as a Teletype operator at a San Diego Marine depot.

While joining the military is more acceptable for women now, when she joined in the 1960s, the command staff frowned on female recruits.

"Their thing was you were there just to find a husband," she said.

In fact, if a woman got pregnant while serving, she was discharged. That practice changed in the 1970s.
"Now you have the baby, then come back to serve the rest of your duty," she said.

Rueber, a Norristown resident, is starting a Women Marines Association chapter with four other women from the Philadelphia area. Several others have pledged support.

The group plans to hold a free potluck lunch and meeting April 8 at 12 p.m. at the Marine Corps League Chester County Detachment, located at 35 Chestnut St. in Downingtown.

An association chapter operated in Philadelphia from 1983 until 2003, she said, but was dissolved.

Recently, the Marine association raised money for a Hurricane Katrina relief fund and routinely sends toiletries and other supplies, what Rueber called "ditty bags," to women Marines who have been wounded.

The group's Adopt a Marine program sends letters and packages to service members without families. As well, the women visit veterans hospitals in Coatesville and Philadelphia.

Recruiting for the women's association is a challenge because the Marine Corps is not permitted to issue a list of service members.

"We have no way of getting their names, because the government is not going to give their names out," she said. "A lot of girls on active duty haven't heard about (the organization)."

Rueber draws attention to her cause when she wears her red Marine jacket in public. Occasionally, she meets other Marines and makes her pitch for the new chapter.

"That's how we meet people," she said. "You'll be wearing the jacket and people stop and talk to you.

They (usually) ask if I'm married to a Marine," she said.

Recently, she recruited Tonya Sapp, a U.S. Postal worker employed in Norristown.

Rueber's communication work at the San Diego base was secret. Whatever she learned inside her office she kept to herself. On "burn runs," she routinely disposed of confidential messages in a furnace.

In 1963, she met President John F. Kennedy in San Diego a month before he was assassinated.

"I knew he was coming two weeks before he was scheduled to visit, but you couldn't tell anybody," she said.

When Kennedy arrived, she accompanied him on a tour of the base with other military personnel.

"He was kidding me and wanted to know where my accent came from," she said.

Rueber bit part of her tongue off in a childhood accident, and her quirky pronunciations kept people guessing about her where she grew up.

A native of Norristown, she is he daughter of Eugene and Ruth Irvin. They later moved to Conshohocken. After graduating from Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, she enlisted in the service and hoped to become a nurse.

Her Marine commanders told her she should have joined the Navy.

Rueber was married twice and has four children. She is a member of the Marine Corps League's distinguished Devil Dogs order.

Opha Mae Johnson is credited as the first woman to join the Marine Corps in 1918. The Marine Corps Women's Reserve was established in 1943. Congress passed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act in 1948 making women a permanent part of the Marines.

The Women Marines Association was created in 1960 and has 80 chapters nationwide. For more information about the organization contact Leticia Rodrieguez at 215-300-8840 or
latinrosepedal@yahoo.com; Ginnie Rueber at 610-618-0414 or wmvrirvin@msn.com; or Kathy Van Gorder at 610-489-3756 or VanGorders2@aol.com.

Ellie