Peewee

Peewee Maloney is a little trick with a turned-up nose, brown hair and wide smile --neat and cute as a .22 bullet. Back home in Rochester, N.Y., she had been cashier in a cafeteria, until she persuaded the Army to make an exception to its 5-ft. rule and let her in the WAC, all 4 ft. 11 in. of her. As Private Margaret H. Maloney she was soon stationed in North Africa.

One morning Peewee was acting as supply sergeant for her company when Private Kenny Jacobs came into the WAC's kitchen. Helpfully he poured some gasoline into the stove to prime it, splashed some on his clothes, set himself afire and collapsed in a mass of flames. Peewee threw herself on him, smothered the fire with her body, beat it out with her bare hands. Private Jacobs was carried off to the hospital, lucky to be alive; Peewee was carried off with him, for treatment of burns on her face and legs.

Last week while an Army band played, a color guard and three platoons of WACs marched and wheeled and stood at at tention, a trembling Peewee did a front and center, stood alone. The adjutant read a citation: "For outstanding heroism and self-sacrifice," from General Dwight Eisenhower. On her O.D. blouse Major General E.S. Hughes pinned the first Soldier's medal awarded a WAC. Then, though the regulations do not prescribe it, towering General Hughes unbent in the middle, leaned down and planted a kiss on the glowing cheek of Private Maloney.

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