Jauregui: Camarillo veteran joined Marines during World War II
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    Exclamation Jauregui: Camarillo veteran joined Marines during World War II

    Jauregui: Camarillo veteran joined Marines during World War II

    By Jannette Jauregui (Contact)
    Saturday, April 11, 2009

    Ruth Pettijohn was stationed in San Francisco in September 1945 when Gen. Jonathan Wainwright returned to the United States after three years as a prisoner of war in the Pacific. The man who had been nicknamed “Skinny” for his tall, lanky stature was thinner than ever. His cheekbones were more pronounced. The years away had taken their toll.

    “I remember watching he and his men come off that ship,” Pettijohn said. “General Wainwright really struggled to walk, but he stuck it out and made it down the gangplank.”

    Wainwright, who had only recently been promoted to general, had been awarded the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines. He had been captured early on in the war but was liberated in time to witness the official Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. For Pettijohn, his return was bittersweet.

    “I remember feeling so sad for them after seeing how thin and sickly they all were,” said the Camarillo woman. “But there was joy, too, because the war was over and they had made it home.”

    Pettijohn, 89, had spent her life living on a farm in Melba, Idaho.

    “We never knew we were poor,” she said of her family. “We always had food and milk and cheese from the farm. We had what we needed and didn’t feel the hardship.”

    When World War II started in 1941, Pettijohn traveled with her sister, Edith, to Washington, D.C., where they worked as Government Girls, assisting with the mobilization efforts. They spent two years working in the nation’s capital and in New York City.

    “It was really a great experience,” Pettijohn said. “There was a lot of patriotism then.”

    Her role as a Government Girl ended in 1943, and a then 23-year-old Pettijohn moved to Oregon where she worked as a secretary for a vacuum company.

    “A woman Marine came in to talk to us one night about recruitment,” she said. “I was in awe. Boy was she a good salesman.”

    Pettijohn joined that night, and on Oct. 23, 1943, she was sworn in to the United States Marines.

    “They told me I was too thin and needed to gain six pounds before they would swear me in,” she said. “So I went to the hospital where my sister worked as a surgical nurse. Her friend told me that she could help me gain five pounds, but that I would have to do exactly what she said.”

    For the entire day, Pettijohn drank whole milk and ate bananas and graham crackers.

    “I felt like I was going to be sick,” she said. “I never liked milk, and couldn’t go near a banana or graham cracker for years after.”

    Pettijohn met the weight requirement and was sworn in.

    On Christmas Day that year, the new recruit boarded a train bound for Camp Lejeune, N.C.

    “We arrived on New Year’s Day,” she said. “Boot camp was quite an experience. They marched and marched us.”

    After six weeks of boot camp, Pettijohn was sent to Bremerton, Wash., and assigned to the naval station’s recreation center.

    “I couldn’t have gotten a better assignment if I tried,” she said. “I just loved it there.”

    On Sept. 12, 1944, Pettijohn took a short leave and married her childhood sweetheart, Ross Pettijohn, who served as a radar instructor and communications technician for the Army throughout the Pacific.

    “It was quite funny at times having me be a Marine and he an Army man,” Pettijohn said. “He didn’t like it so much when I joined.”

    When she returned to work at Bremerton, Pettijohn spent much of her time with the troops who were returning from combat in the Pacific.

    “When I first arrived, we had most of the guys from Guadalcanal,” she said. “But it seemed like the more the war progressed, the worse the battle fatigue got. The men were wonderful, and I just felt so bad for them. They just wanted to talk, and most of what I did was listen. They had been away so long. Some had been prisoners.”

    But when the survivors returned from Iwo Jima in the spring of 1945, emotion took its toll on Pettijohn.

    “They were in really bad shape. I mean bad,” she said. “It just got to be too hard for me. “

    Pettijohn asked to be transferred and was sent to San Francisco.

    “The first job they gave me was to close out the books for the fatalities in Iwo Jima,” she said. “It was very difficult for me. It really got to me.”

    When the books were closed and the last of the men killed had been accounted for, Pettijohn was assigned to deliver confidential messages from within the base.

    “Pettijohn remained in San Francisco and was discharged on Oct. 27, 1945. She reflected on how she felt when it was over:

    “I had some really great experiences that I would never have had without the Marines,” she said. “There were some really great times, but a lot of sadness, too. ...”

    But there was also joy for those who returned.

    “One of the messages I delivered was about some boys from my hometown,” she said. “They had been taken as prisoners on Wake Island, and no one knew if they were alive. They were gone for almost the entire war. They came home alive, and I was glad for that.”

    Pettijohn and her husband moved to California after the war where Ross enrolled at U.C. Berkeley. He re-enlisted in the Army, and they made their way to Southern California where they raised three daughters, Christine, Margaret, and Cathy.

    In 2002, Ross died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

    “He had a hard time when the war was over,” Pettijohn said. “He had changed a lot, but I feel that the Marines really helped me understand it better. That was the thing with the war. It was a rough time for a lot of people. ... When the war ended, all I could think about was why did this have to happen? Why did all of these young men have to die? But I am proud to have been a Marine. They always said to us ‘You have to be better than the best because you are a Marine.’ And I think we really were.”

    — Of War and Life is a twice-monthly column that tells the stories of area veterans. Contact Jannette Jauregui at jmjaureg@callutheran.edu or by mail to Jannette Jauregui, c/o Ventura County Star editorial department, P.O. Box 6006, Camarillo, CA 93011. The information included in this report is based on the recollections of the veterans.

    Video and pix's

    http://gallery.venturacountystar.com...fm?VideoID=823

    Ellie

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