“I’m proud that even though I felt that what I did was not monumental, it was a service to my country… when you’ve lived and seen what’s happened to our country, I’m so proud that… I lived in the days that I’ve lived,” says Bernice Trotter.
Trotter was a Marine Corps women’s reserve; they were brought in to do clerical and related jobs previously done by men so the men could be deployed to fight.
“We were Marines to free a Marine to fight. The men were already classified, trained. We came in and took their jobs so they could go to the Pacific. There was a stigma and it wasn’t just the Marine Corps, it was women getting in the military. It was unheard of and yet it was a necessity,” says Trotter.
