MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. -- It is said that on the night of Oct. 12, 1942, when Gen. Thomas Holcomb, 17th commandant of the Marine Corps, announced a decision to allow women into the Corps during a farewell party at the Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C., the portrait of Brig. Gen. Archibald Henderson, fifth commandant of the Corps, crashed from the wall onto the buffet.
Despite the late general’s apparent protest and opposition from other Marines at the time, the Corps officially opened to women Feb. 13, 1943. It was this anniversary and all the subsequent triumphs over naysayers that more than 70 members of the Women Marines Association’s District of Columbia and Crossroads chapters gathered to celebrate Feb. 16 at the Sheraton Pentagon City Hotel in Arlington.
“It’s challenging to be a woman Marine, which is why we celebrate it — because we know what we’ve experienced to wear that uniform,” said Parisa Fetherson, manager for Quantico’s Personal and Professional Development program, and president of the WMA Crossroads chapter, one of two Virginia chapters. Nonetheless, the retired sergeant major said if she hadn’t been able to be a Marine, she wouldn’t have known what to do, adding that her daughter was recently commissioned as a Marine Corps lieutenant. “Each generation paves the way for the next.”
Sgt. Maj. Laura Brown, Marine Corps Base Quantico sergeant major, who was also at the annual event Sunday, agreed. Following last month’s executive order, she said, tomorrow’s female Marines will have the opportunity to serve in combat.
“There are women in this room who paved the way,” Brown said. “It’s because of them that I stand here before you as a sergeant major.”
Brown is the first female base sergeant major in Quantico’s history.
One of the trailblazers in attendance was retired Lt. Col. Mary Sue League, of the D.C. chapter, who was discharged from the Corps in 1970 because she was pregnant. She petitioned the commandant and reapplied for active duty every month until the rule against active duty females having children was changed and she was re-commissioned in 1972.
Also present were four of the first black Marines to be enlisted into the Corps, all members of the D.C. chapter of the Montford Point Marine Association.
“The ladies went through some of the same struggles as African Americans to join the Marines,” said retired Gunnery Sgt. Reuben McNair, one of the Montford Point Marines.
In her remarks, WMA D.C. chapter President Annette Taylor noted that she’d heard a reporter asking the Montford Point Marines what brought them to the celebration, since they weren’t female Marines. “And [retired Staff Sgt.] Eugene [Groves] looked at him like, ‘Son, you must have three eyeballs,’” she laughed. “It doesn’t matter if you’re male, female, what your background is, what your culture is — you’re a Marine,” Taylor said.
The history of women in the Corps “is well known and well understood,” said keynote speaker Maj. Gen. Mark Brilakis, who is currently assistant deputy commandant for programs at Headquarters Marine Corps and will arrive at Quantico this summer as commanding officer of Marine Corps Recruiting Command. “But it’s not always well-appreciated, and I know that’s a hard thing for you to swallow.”
Brilakis said he has an appreciation for female service members, in part because his wife is an Army veteran and his daughter is training to be a Navy corpsman.
As a father, he said, he didn’t even want to think of his daughter going into combat. As a Marine, though, he said the thought made him proud. “I fully believe that she should have the opportunity to do what she wants to do, if she wants to do it.”
Brilakis said the women in the room had faced challenges in the Marine Corps that he never had. “But the legacy you’ve built and the history you’ve generated, not just for women Marines but for all Marines, is one we owe you a debt of thanks for, for as long as we have a Marine Corps.”
The celebration also included a silent auction that raised more than $1,000 for a Molly Marine statue to be erected at the National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico, a project that both chapters are sponsoring. The sculpture, a replica of the country’s first statue of a female service member, is expected to be installed this summer.
— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com