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Lady Leathernecks Always Marines, Too

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

Joanne Heidenreich, left, and Dottie Pobozny look at an album of their active-duty days in the U.S. Marine Corps.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: November 10, 2007

Only Joanne Heidenreich is supposed to be at her Port Richey home to tell her story about being a U.S. Marine in the 1950s.

But even after half century, the Semper Fi esprit de corps remains strong.

Heidenreich has invited three other members of the Women Marines Association Orange Blossom Florida Port Richey home to share their experiences.

In addition to Heidenreich, Dollie Pobozny, Barbara De Guiseppe, and Jeanette McKinnon have also served in the Marines.

De Guiseppe and Heidenreich were in the corps during the 1950s. McKinnon had a 20-year career with the Marines that ended in 1991.

Pobozny joined the Marines during World War II in 1943 "to free a man to fight."

"It was a slogan that women had," she explains.

Fresh out of school

Fresh out of high school in Chicago and only 18, Pobozny, now a resident of Hudson, was in the first group of women trainees at Camp Lejeune. The Marines moved basic training for women to the base in North Carolina in 1943.

"They didn't know what to do with us half the time," she recalls of her Marine Corps instructors.

So, the Marines taught the women to march.

And march.

"All we did was train and march," Pobozny recalls.

The North Carolina heat got to some of the women, causing them to pass out.

But not Pobozny, who is now 85. "I'm not the passing-out type," she says crisply.

Verbal picture painted

Heidenreich joined the Corps in 1954. She and a high school friend had been enticed by the verbal picture recruiters painted of Marine life.

"They told us we would be able to do all kinds of things, like horseback riding and tennis."

Did they?

Heidenreich laughs. "No way. Not during boot camp."

The only tennis courts she ever saw during her training were those their instructors assigned the women to weed.

Boot camp was "a whole different world. It was nothing like home," she smiles.

Remembers chow

She remembers chow. The women were lined up alphabetically. "Our drill instructor went through the line first. By the time she finished and headed for the door, we had to be standing in line ready."

With Brooks as a maiden name, Heidenreich was lucky. She was among the first to get her meals in the alphabetical-order chow line. This gave her a bit more time to eat than the women at the end of the line.

After boot camp, Heidenreich was first stationed in San Francisco, where she served as a clerk typist at an electronics supply depot.

As was Pobozny, Heidenreich was told her job helped free up men for other work.

There was no resentment among women then, she recalls. "We didn't worry about things like that."

She later re-enlisted and was stationed at Camp H. M. Smith, on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, site of, among other facilities, the Aiea Naval Hospital. At Camp Smith she met her husband Bill, also a Leatherneck, at a Marine Corps ball.

"I think I grew up," she says, reflecting on her Marine Corps days.

Touch lessons

The Marine Corps gave her tough lessons in discipline that still are valuable, she says.

Barbara De Guiseppe echoes Heidenreich's assessment. De Guiseppe was a Marine from 1954 until 1957. "You go in as a baby, but you grow up. It's a life experience."

And a traveling one for Jeanette McKinnon, who was in the Marine Corps for 20 years, from 1971 until 1991. Washington, D.C., San Diego, Panama and Norway are some of the areas McKinnon saw through the Marines.

In 1975, McKinnon was one of six women in the first drill instructor class in which women were taught drill instruction procedures formerly reserved for men.

In Palm Harbor, Vivian Greene remembers her two years of Marine Corps service that began in 1944. Greene is a member of Gulf Coast Chapter of Women Marines Association.

Greene recalls boot camp in Camp Lejeune. "We marched everywhere we went. If someone needed a tube of toothpaste at the PX, the whole platoon had to march there.

Crazy about planes

Greene enlisted because she was "crazy about planes."

The Marines sent her to mechanics school at the Naval Air Technical Training Center, in Norman, Okla. Women Marines and male sailors made up the class.

"It was the hottest summer of my life," she remembers. "Back then, there was no air conditioning."

Students would fall asleep during the class. The Navy took out all the chairs and made students stand up to stay awake during class. If instructors saw anyone dosing, they would throw water on them.

"A lot of times I would shut my eyes so they'd throw water on me," Greene says. "It was warm, but even so, it felt good."

After finishing her classes, Greene was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Quantico. At the aviation base in Virginia she gave planes preflight mechanical inspections.

Had to prove themselves

Women were especially careful doing this job because they had to prove they were capable mechanics, she remembers.

"We girls knew if we made one mistake, we would be off that flight line," the 83-year-old Greene says.

The planes' pilots appreciated their diligence, she notes. "They told us they'd rather see a woman's signature on the checklist."

After the war, Greene married, had three children and lived in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.

But her two years in the Marines remain an important part of her life. She has been to every Women Marines Association convention but two from 1970 to 2000. She has not been able to attend recent conventions because of her health.

"It gave me self confidence and a lot of friends and a lot of friends I met through the Women Marines Association," she says about having been a Marine.

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