For U.S. Women in Uniform, a Place of Honor

In aging uniforms and gleaming medals, some leaning on canes, others walking with sure steps, thousands of female veterans converged on Washington on Saturday to dedicate a memorial intended to give recognition to American women’s military service and sacrifice.

Women whose military careers were spent in the shadow of men came together for the opening of the $21.5-million Women in Military Service for America Memorial at the entrance to one of the armed forces’ most sacred spots, Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The opening marked another symbolic step toward full equality for military women and came in a year in which their status in the armed forces has become explosively controversial.

“The recognition has just been too long in coming,” said Helen Hannah Campbell, a retired Marine master gunnery sergeant from Fountain Valley, Calif.

The memorial was built after years of agitation by women and culminates nine years of fund-raising and planning by veterans and supporters, led by retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Wilma L. Vaught, 67. It was built around and behind an imposing semicircular granite wall erected in 1932 at the cemetery’s main entrance. The visual focus is a fountain and 60,000-gallon reflecting pool that sit in front of the wall.

Behind the wall, under skylights, are an exhibition hall and education center designed to teach visitors what generations of women have done in wars dating from the American Revolution. A computer system with a series of terminals tells visitors the stories of about 200,000 female veterans.

About 41,000 U.S. women served during the Persian Gulf War, some close to the front lines. But for most of American history, women were considered to be fit for only emergency service in the military, and then only in support jobs.

On Saturday, the dedication ceremony drew a cast of dignitaries including Vice President Al Gore, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Henry H. Shelton, and retired Joint Chiefs chairmen John M. Shalikashvili and Colin L. Powell.

President Clinton, in South America on a state visit, told the audience in a videotaped message that the memorial “is a living reminder that we are all involved, men and women, when it comes to protecting America’s security.” This knowledge was “sometimes slow in coming,” he said.

But the real stars of the day were the veterans themselves, who, with their families, filled up the broad boulevard that runs for several hundred yards between the Potomac River and the memorial.

Some women wore uniforms that had long since been phased out--indeed, some from organizations, like the Women’s Army Corps, that have long been disbanded. Husbands of deceased veterans came too, some wearing large buttons with pictures of their wives in uniform.

Perhaps the oldest veteran present was Frieda Greene Hardin, 102, from Livermore, Calif., who volunteered for the Navy in 1918 when she was 22. She appeared before the audience in the broad-brimmed flat black hat she had worn as a “Yeomanette” in Norfolk, Va., where she worked as a Navy dock clerk.

Hardin moved slowly toward the microphone when it came her turn to speak. But she told the audience in a loud voice: “To those women who are now in military service, I say, ‘Go for it!’ ”

The audience roared with approval each time a speaker declared that recognition for women had been too long in coming.

Yet the memories that spilled forth at this reunion seemed more often sweet than bitter, even for women who believed that they had been disadvantaged by their gender.

Rena Thomas, 76, of Louisville, Ky., drifted through the crowd in her khaki World War II Army uniform hoping desperately that she could find a fellow soldier from her old unit, the 6669th Women’s Army Corps headquarters platoon.

On her back she had pinned a note: “Served in North Africa and Italy.”

Thomas was among the first U.S. troops to reach North Africa, and though she was an office worker, she lived in a tent and sometimes a foxhole, washed her clothes in a helmet and ducked German aircraft regularly. A man who worked alongside her was promoted to staff sergeant when she left the unit--a promotion she believes she deserved. But that experience hasn’t change her view of her days in the service.

“I loved the Army,” she said.

Margaret Krol, 77, of San Bernardino, a former Army field nurse, landed at Utah Beach after D-day and followed in the rear of Gen. George S. Patton’s advance through Western Europe, helping treat soldiers who were too ill to move.

She was often close to danger, and remembers the night when German aircraft bombed and strafed the Dutch home where she was billeted. “My palms were dripping I was so scared,” she said.

She said she is indignant at the slow recognition that women have gotten. “Women have never been recognized properly--never!” she said.

But does she believe that the military mistreated women like her? With the exception of black women--since she served in the long era of racial segregation--”no, absolutely not. We were treated fine,” she said.

Still, other women attending the ceremonies described the difficulties they encountered.

For example, Mary Chipps, 76, of San Diego recalled the torment she often endured from fellow military personnel who questioned whether a woman should work as a chaplain’s assistant, a post she held for several years.

“Guys would tell me, ‘You’re a woman, take it easy.’

“And I’d tell them, ‘Forget it,’ ” she said.