Bravery, brav·ery | \ ‘brav-re the quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty.
This year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of World War II’s ending (1939-1945). So, this Veteran’s Day, I wanted to share what bravery looks like to me by honoring the service of the everyday young women who enlisted.
These are the lesser known heroes of WWII. The thousands of spirited souls who signed up not knowing what role they would play in what would become the deadliest conflict in human history, a war that involved over 30 countries, with over 70 million fatalities.
Congress instituted the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps in May of 1942, which would later become the Women’s Army Corps. These women were known as WACs and they worked in more than 200 non-combatant positions stateside.
It wasn’t until three years after the end of WWII that women became a permanent fixture of the United States military services when the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 law was passed.
Of the 350,000 women who served with the armed forces during World War II, it is estimated that only 14,500 of those women are still alive today. One of them turned ninety-nine years old this April during COVID-19, and I happen to love her immensely. She’s my grandmother.
Every so often my mind wanders to a place where Nana is grabbing my hand, swirling me around in the kitchen when I was still smaller than she, rousing her memory with wartime stories while humming The Andrews Sisters’ “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy [of Company B].”
She made wartime sound like the movies.
Over the years Doris “Nana” Clougher has relished in sharing countless stories about her life with me. During adolescence, she survived whooping cough, walking miles in brutal blizzards, the death of her father, and pencils in her Christmas stocking during The Great Depression.
When the war began in 1939 she was a small-town girl from Upstate New York who worked as an assistant clerk for the Massena Town Hall.
The United States entered the war after Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.
Doris continued working for a time until she felt the need to make a difference. She was already receiving letters from her two younger brothers abroad (one a Navy pilot, the other a sailor.)
She enlisted in 1944. No one knew how long the war would last or whether we would win, but she was determined to join her brothers and make her contribution to the United States of America as a woman and a patriot. I grew up believing my grandmother was truly brave.
My grandmother remembers being frightened. She speaks of the fear she had leaving home for the first time. Basic training takes her to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia where she runs through tear-gas filled underground tunnels. The WACs were being prepared for the war to come to US soil.
When finished with basic training, Doris became a medical stenographer at Tilton General Hospital in Fort Dix, New Jersey. The hospital was administering rehabilitation and physiotherapy for injured and amputee soldiers. She made rounds with the doctors, recording what care the injured would need before returning home.
She met my grandfather, John Clougher, at Fort Dix, and they were married in the service before settling in New Jersey to raise their family.
After the war Doris was a loving and loved wife, a beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and collectively everyone’s “Nana.”
She was always well known for her Irish stew and cream puffs, but most of all for her perfect grandmotherliness.
There aren’t enough words to describe how much my grandmother means to me. I learned almost everything I know in matters of heart, mind, and soul from her. I’m truly honored to share her humble story.
As much as she cherishes her family, she reveres her time in the service of her country as the most poignant of her life. I can just hear her saying proudly to me, “Aimo, I’m a WAC,” with a little salute.
She would have many personal triumphs and tribulations over the course of ninety-nine years, but no achievement or challenge as near and dear to her heart as her time with the United States Army.
The often marginalized, under-appreciated, and over- looked group of soldiers were no doubt the WACs of theWWII generation.
She was a small, blonde, blue-eyed farm girl from Upstate New York. She answered a call that inevitably changed her life.
So what does bravery look like to me? Bravery is stepping outside of your comfort zone and into a commitment and duty for the greater good. As did these often forgotten soldiers. As did Nana.