Birthda

The Marine Corps Women's Reserve, proud and pleased with themselves, this week will celebrate their first birthday.

From their New River (N.C.) boot camp, some 10,000 Reserves have gone to post assignments. Recruiting has been better than in some of the other women's organizations; the Marines expect to fill their modest quota of 18,000 without trouble.

The Marine women come from many places and occupations. Tall, dark-haired 2nd Lieut. Jane Greenough, who is now an aerial photo interpretation officer at nearby Cherry Point, is a graduate of Vassar and was working in the Portland (Ore.) Art Museum when she joined the Corps. Private Edna Thomas, now an aerial gunnery instructor, was an elementary schoolteacher in Savonburg, Kans. 1st Lieut. Virginia O'Meara, who wears her greying hair upswept, was an assistant scriptwriter in Hollywood before she started her own insurance business in Bayside, L.I.

The average age of enlisted women is 20-22, of officers, 25-35, and about 20% of all of them spent two or more years in college. Colonel John M. Arthur can recall only four serious cases of wrongdoing since he became commandant of the Reserve Schools last August. Two girls went A.W.O.L.; one turned out to be drunk; one was a thief.

After Dark. Despite their spit & polish, the girls are still girls. The men flock to the Reserves' recreation hall and, when they are not invited, try to crash it. In their barracks, after dark, the girls turn up in ruffly nightgowns, tailored pajamas, housecoats, satin robes and all kinds of footgear, from fancy mules to fleece-lined booties.

Washrooms are full of fuss and flutter, and the babbling confusion of Marines in undress waiting to take showers, crowding around mirrors to put their hair in curlers and massaging their faces with creams. In the grey dawn they comb out the pin curls, feverishly powder noses, paint on lipstick (which matches the Marine red hat-cord) and dash off to breakfast and their duties.

At Cherry Point, they are clerks and stenographers in the post administration building. They inspect and pack parachutes at the loft, teach gunnery to the men, operate Link trainers, help in the control tower. The photography department is now exclusively a woman's domain.

In the Best Tradition. Smart and helpful, the Reserves are also self-sufficient. The New River maintenance crew, for instance, is allowed to handle up to 220-voltage electricity and performs the plumbing and carpentry chores in the women's area. Corporal Billie Holcomb, who has a Marine staff sergeant father and an Army sergeant husband in the Aleutians, is boss.

In her crew are Electricians Myra Iorg and Thelma Watson, who once worked in defense plants; Carpenter Ruth Wallick, who has three brothers in the Army and says that she used to do all the carpentry around home; Plumber Marguerete Julien; Plumber Laura Derrickson, who once attended the Fort Wayne Bible Institute, now zealously preaches the doctrine of not throwing anything in the "heads"--because if one gets stopped up "we'll have to take out that whole doggone bulkhead."

New River buzzed with plans last week for the birthday celebration. There will be dancing, a review, a nationwide NBC radio program with speeches by officials, including the Reserves' boss, Ruth Cheney Streeter, who has just been made a full colonel. The band, led by earnest, prancing Sergeant Charlotte Plummer, who once played with the Municipal Band in Portland, Ore., will play for the broadcast.

Naturally the women are excited about their first birthday, but male Marines cooled them down: "Sister, the Marine Corps is 168 years old; the birthday comes in November." Now the girls meekly call it the anniversary of their entrance into the Corps.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.