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THOSE UNSEEN, UNHEARD ARKANSAS WOMEN: WAC, WAVES, AND WOMEN MARINES OF WORLD WAR II
"After a lapse of more than forty years, events that happened so long ago must have been of a very startling nature to retain still a vivid place in memory." So said Emily Reed of Batesville, Arkansas in 1907 as she remembered her experiences during the Civil War. She did not tell her story to create any feelings against the North but to hand down to posterity the memories of the women who were every bit as important as the "men who wore the gray."(1) A similar feeling of pride and patriotism exists today among those often unseen and unheard from Arkansas women who served this nation during World War II with the same ability, adaptability and stability. This paper relates to those women.
The National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., reports that "no Federal Government agency has ever published lists of all individuals who served in the armed forces from specific states during particular wars or time periods. Some state agencies may have done so." The Center for Military History, as well as the Naval Historical Center, also report that no records were kept by the state. After checking with the Regional Office of the Veterans Administration in North Little Rock, it was learned that a report in a series that presents a compendium of available data on female veterans has been prepared. These records show a total of 2,8000 women, who now reside in Arkansas, as having volunteered during World War II.(2) Arkansas women, according to a random survey conducted for the purpose of this paper, volunteered "for the duration and six months" from such varied places as Little Rock, Bald Knob, Dardanelle and Pangburn, as well as Alexander, Stuttgart, Booneville and Conway.
Women have found places of gallant heroism in many parts of the earth that have passed through sieges of military strife. From ornamental category to examples of soldiery, women have stood in line of battle, shoulder to shoulder with men. In glancing over the lives of women more directly connected with warfare, one is struck with the fact that the world is in no small measure indebted to the substantial part they have taken.(3)