FEATURE
boot camp. It took about a week to get
across the country because we were zig-
zagging around picking up troop trains
along the way. And when we got to Camp
Lejeune everybody was standing around
yelling, ‘You’ll be sorry!’”
But she wasn’t. “We signed up for the
duration plus six months, to free [male]
Marines up to fight. They didn’t send
women Marines overseas back then, but
I didn’t know that when I joined.” By
the time Brown was discharged it was
January 1946. She couldn’t return to her
from their homes in both Northern and
Southern California were several sets of
brothers. One set, Roland and Rawland
Strang, of Oroville Lodge No. 103,
happen to be twins, identical save for the
small moustache sported by Rawland.
“What an honor and privilege to be there as my father
experienced the WWII Memorial. I watched his eyes swell
with tears when a small girl gave him a hug and thanked
him.” - Robert Spindler, guardian
old job because it had been in the aircraft
industry.
Anna Brown didn’t take advantage
of the G.I. Bill. As she puts it, “I fiddle-faddled around too much. But I enjoyed
being in the Service. I think it was the
best thing I ever did. It was my college.”
Brotherhood and survival
Among the more than four dozen
WWII veterans brought to Washington
killed in the sinking of
the U.S.S. Juneau on
November 13, 1942,
after which the military
tightened its policy
on brothers serving
together – “and for the
next few days they said
no more twins. We
were already in, so my
brother had to get leave
