WAACs Go to Camp

Elm-shaded Fort Des Moines last week greeted the first WAACs--800 of them, 440 officer candidates and 360 auxiliaries. Twenty-one women reporters, twelve men reporters, 22 photographers were waiting for them. Thousands of press words choked the wires with intimate WAAC detail, so that U.S. citizens knew all about WAAC food, clothes, beds (short-sheeted by male Army pranksters), orchids, sore feet, the first ride in an Army truck, the lingerie drying racks in the laundry, the cannon at reveille, the embarrassed male non-com who said: "You in the blue dress, step forward," the use of "ma'am," the cigarets in WAAC lockers.

Significant item: when a nocturnal mouse invaded Company No. 1's quarters, there were no screams. A WAAC coolly slew it with a well-aimed shoe.

The girls were on public view for one day. Then the Army closed the doors and they settled down to training.

Director Oveta Gulp Hobby, a colonel's eagles on her shoulders and the WAAC's Pallas Athene on her lapels, reviewed her charges for the first time last week. Said she: "Military tradition has given way to a pressing need and you are the first women to serve as an auxiliary force with the United States Army. Never forget it. You have taken off silk and put on khaki. And all for essentially the same reason--you have a debt and a date. A debt to democracy, a date with destiny."

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