In Step Now

As we WAVES marched along from one scheduled activity to the next, we often sang. “Anchors Aweigh” was, of course, the main number to get us going, but we always ended up with a rather mournful little ditty that went something like this:

“Don’t make my girl a sailor,”
A weeping mother said.
“Make her a WAC or send her back
To Lockheed school instead.
She’s always been a home-girl,
She’s never been to sea.
A guy in every port is n---o---t
The life she learned from me.”

Naturally the song begged to have another stanza. It went like this:

“I want to be a sailor,”
A smiling daughter said.
“Don’t take me back to be a WAC
Nor to Lockheed school instead.
I’ve always been a home-girl
I’ve never been to sea.
A guy in every port is j---u---s---t
The life for you and me.”

However, during boot training, there were no guys in our lives, except through the Post Office perhaps. We didn’t mind, so long as we were wearing those old-woman’s shoes. But once after training was over, we wore high-heeled black pumps with the toe and heel in, and felt dressed up again. Because it was wartime, we had to be in uniform even during liberty and being in uniform got us through subway turnstiles free.

During those early days of women’s being in military services (I got in rather late), many Americans labeled women in uniform as morally bad. I want to stress strongly and indelibly, that if a person, male or female, has good moral character while at home—really and truly good moral character—he or she will still have that good moral character away from home. I was never aware of any immoralities among the WAVES in my charge; at Sears, where I had worked before joining the WAVES, I knew of quite a bit of that sort of thing. The same accusation used to label nurses. They were bad women! I could never figure that one out. Was it that a first-hand knowledge of human anatomy caused them to be bad? They certainly all didn’t have affairs with doctors. This judgment went to extreme in the case of military women. When my brother, in Europe, read aloud from a letter from back home, that I had joined the WAVES, another soldier actually said to him, “Well, I guess I won’t be speaking to you again.” To be continued.

♥