Veterans Interview: Dennis Boyd talks with Jeanne Yoder

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

And now back to answers for elders as we honor our military veterans. Carriage is the proud sponsor of our veteran segment. Posted by former ctle Seahawk Dennis Boyd. Hello, this is Dennis Boyd at Patriots landing in Dupont Washington. We are here today with Gene Yoder, storekeeper third class at Patriots, one of the residents here at Patriots landing and celebrating the veteran of the month award. Geen, thank you for joining us. They’re welcome. Jean, tell us a little bit about you. Mentioned your history with the US Coast Guard was a short one, but tell us how you got into the Coast Guard, what yours that was and what was going on at the time. I went a forty to all forty three. Why then they go in the Coast Guard? Because I’ve lived in waiting Illinois, outside of Chicago, and for some reason some Coast Guard captain had been stationing Chicago brought his family out to live and waiting. Then we all got a quite another song prest for the Coast Guard when they are out recruiting. Thought that was pretty good service. There you go. So where did you do your basic then Hunter College New York. Okay, the college kind of seems like an unusual place to do. Basically took over. They had the spars, waves and the marines. Okay, so the spars were the Women Coast Guard. Yeah, we coast gut. Okay, pro proud is always ready. All right. So tell me. So from there, you were from New York. You were then stationed. We’re went down to school at Palm Beach. Okay, from there to San Francisco. Okay, in one thousand nine hundred and forty three, I think we were still pretty heavily into the Pacific there. Tell us what you know, what your experience, what we were seeing with the men and women that were being shipped off to the Pacific. Well, one of the things that I resounded about, or I was not a band Paul the head, I keep saying, Hey, a bunch of devout cowards and didn’t want to go to say, and they can turn some of these little kids around. The came in and Sner right back out. It was a receiving station and a lot of fellows and joined the coast guards, though they were going to reguard the coast. No, they were just sent out to the navy. I worked with follows I did not like at all. Anyway, when I got down town to the headquarters, there was a lot better at stir so. It headquarters. They had a little bit more appreciation for women in the service. That was the pay roll sections. Okay, there was attitude was better. Women in the service was something new at that time. Absolutely. The call to serve, I think, was, you know, kind of sent out to all after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. You thought the coast carpet. was there a reason? Or we mean, what was your calling to to serve the country or even go into the service? Well, this is going to be seem strange to you. I was married to a Navy Ma’am H. Well, he got snout to say, and so we’re decided either I went back to Illinoi or join the service. So I did. Okay, good and a half years later we got together. So tell me about you and the women that work there, especially at payroll. I mean, what was, you know, the Camaraderie or the well we all got along. I want silver, I mean have a job out of desk. HMM, yeah’s your duties. You just did them. I guess the general feeling, and it’s hard for us today, in in two thousand and eighteen, to understand actual fear that we had that Japan would invade the west coast. Well, you know, I never, I never felt any fear. I think the fair part was probably gone or we didn’t think we were going to make attack. Just actually, it was just duty station, okay, we all put our time in. I can’t say that there was the fear that we were going to be run over by the enemy. Fact, I never thought that. When you say you were receiving station, was that for new personnel coming in and discharging people that had put in their years, or slaves? Brand were drafts and started about to the native or the Coast Guard because somebody they went to see? Right, let’s face it, there was no issue of where you wanted to go. We were at war. Talk to me about you know what was going on in the country at the time. Tell me what you know, you and your friends talked about. Yeah, Roosevelt, course, everybody kept the war going. I don’t know what what to say. Politically, we just had a very democratic rooseveltime. So talk to me a little bit about when we read about the some of the shortages for materials and and we never had shortages. I don’t know, tell you, is like living here. We always had food and we were always taking car, we had our uniforms, and so I would say we were spoiled. Well, that was there, but I mean in in the general public, though, I mean the suffered. Oh my Lord, the shortages. And so you had family back in Illinois that would they were creeping by in. And what was I had a brother who went in the navy. He was on a ship. Yeah, my family consisted of three of us and then there was a big space. Seven years later and there were two more. So, but my sister never went in, but myself and my brother. My brother was drafted. So what did your parents think of you enlisting? Are they thought it was one? Well, at the time it was probably the right thing to do. For many people it was, I think. Yeah, tell me about you said you met your future husband he was drafted into the navy. Is that correct? No, his story is totally different. Okay, he was from India. He wanted to get away from his parents. You joined the forty one before the war started and a Middleiss to say when the war started. He really it was a Carman and he was then assigned to a avenutionship, the PIRALAL. That’s where he spent this whole time. Hopefully he wasn’t kept too busy, you know, as far as personnel on that yeah, yeah, okay. So and you guys married in forty five hundred, forty six? Heavens No, I’m certain forty the last day of forty two. Ah, okay, so that’s what you were saying when you mentioned that he was in the navy for two years and then almost a year and then that once you married, then you just when he had joined the ghost guard at that point. Well, he got stay, he got sent out to see and is like assured those gone bed and gone to college. But I joined the Coast Guard. What changes do you see? I mean when you see the young men and women today? Oh, I’m just think it’s so wonderful. Yeah, women were put out in forty seven and I was no number of years later before the Coast Guard accepted the women again. You can do anything now, anything in the Coast Guard. You know. I thought, Oh, I’m born true, thirty years late. Well, I just thought it was wonderful that they opened up so much to women. Of course he had a roses the purveter out there right put it into other ships and stuff of chase change the attitude in the lives of women. Were many of your friends from High School? Did they? Did they have to go to work in the in the millisy industry? Work? Yeah, some of them went and service. Not many, though, I think it goes one of the few that did your friends were kind of work did they do when they were do you? I don’t know if there are in the army. I think there are a lot of it. There were doing the same thing I was. Okay, I look at the women in the Coast Guard. Then you were slaughtered in the three sections there were the stenographer, you were there a book paper or you were caring party. They slotted women and the women’s slots nothing. So you’ve kind of seen that that big change come of God. Yeah, they open up everything. Yeah, be a pilot. One of the things I wish I’d gotten been able to down there too. I don’t know why, I just they did have women in the Coast Guard is gunnery instructors. I thought that’d be interesting. What interested you about being a gunnery sergeant? Taking care of guns, shooting, teaching, teaching. Yeah, I think that was one of the few other options that were available, but not to too many people. Are just very few. And I don’t know whether the women who got in were abjected. You know, guns are I have no idea. But so tell me about when you were you’re discharged and you were saying that they basically kind of shut down the women in the in the Coast Guard, and probably in other services also. But no, the other services pretty much expanded the army and there was no air force at that time, as you know. So it was basically the army and they kept down with their program so what do you think the difference was between the army and the Coast Guard then? Did the army saw value? Then? The army probably time. I was at about the same adlitude, but they were allowed them to go further on. I say right. was there anything unique that you remember or that any anything that was that you felt you look back and you kind of smile about, or anything like from your your two and a half years there in the in the coastguard? No other than that was the fretest time of my life. Yeah, yeah, no, responsib yeah, to show up and get your job done. All Right, anyway, that’s my that’s my story. All right. Well, gene, thank you very much. I appreciate your time today and thank you again for your service. This has been a special honoring Veterans Presentation of answers for elders, brought to you by carriage. For more information about carriage, the website is sere agecom.