A Veteran Too, She Battles for ‘Boys’ of WWII

Jackie Voelkl has many fond memories as the first female sergeant major in the WACs during World War II.

“But it’s sad now,” said Voelkl, who served overseas and is an ardent worker for veterans’ comforts and needs. “Those boys who fought in that war are growing older and dying, and I don’t know whether the war had anything to do with it. Their average age is only about 67.”

She said she believes that the United States and its people should be placing a greater emphasis on projects to help veterans, especially those from World War II, who are growing older and need assistance.

“It looks like our veterans are getting better recognition these days, and that includes the ones who served during the Vietnam War,” said Voelkl, 67, of Irvine, who owns and operates a publications business. A former national vice commander of AMVETS, she spends her volunteer time helping veterans. “But more is needed for those boys.”

She is part of a group called Alliance for Women Veterans, which is helping to promote the construction of a veterans home in Southern California similar to a veterans home in Northern California.

“It’s difficult because property is so expensive here,” Voelkl said. “But I’m sure there’s still some land available.”

Working with veterans has been a lifelong project for Voelkl, who remembers her years in the service as a secretary to the director of then-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s psychological warfare division in Germany and France.

“A lot of us were sent to France on Christmas Eve in 1944,” she said, “and we attended a Mass in church. There must have been 1,000 of us, and there wasn’t a dry eye among us. We were so young and so far from home.”

Voelkl became a sergeant major at age 22 and a year later was promoted to master sergeant, the highest enlisted rank in what was then called the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps.

“There’s no longer a separation,” she said. “Everything is all one Army and that’s good. Women today have a lot more opportunities in the service than we did.”

Voelkl has never regretted a moment of her Army service, including the time “I met a handsome GI, and we had a wonderful marriage for 39 years.” Her husband, James Voelkl, died 4 years ago.

“The military was a wonderful experience for a 21-year-old girl,” she said, “even though there was still the adage that a woman’s place was in a home. There were a lot of men who resented women in the service.”

At that time, she noted, “a lot of us . . . wanted to do something for our country. All of us kids were patriotic at that time.”

Now she wants to continue doing “something for the boys.”

Paul Arbiso, 93, has been the gardener at the San Juan Capistrano Mission since the early ‘30s and the mission’s official bell ringer since 1947. But before that, he served as a rifleman in World War I, when he was wounded, losing three fingers.

It wasn’t until the recent Veterans Day that he finally received his Purple Heart.

Maj. Gen. Donald Miller of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station presented Arbiso with the medal at a ceremony near the mission, saying that the government was finally getting around to honoring him.

The 200-year-old mission bells were tolled during the ceremony. They are the same ones that Arbiso rings each day at 7 a.m.

Acknowledgments--The 300 students at St. Norbert School in Orange, who raised $1,400 by selling baked goods at noontime and doing extra chores at home, donated the funds to the Holy Childhood Assn., a pontifical mission aid society, to help victims of the recent Bangladesh flood.