[upbeat music]
[wind howling]
[dog barking]
? ?
- I write women's history,
and I didn't know the stories of the Hello Girls.
- I thought I knew a lot about the First World War
and what was going on, but I'd never heard of these women.
- Wow, I've served for 30 plus years in the service
and I've studied military history,
yet I had never heard of the Hello Girls.
- I had never heard of them.
They were switchboard operators.
- Home they came, and did they get their veteran status?
They did not.
- All of the things that we have today,
all of the things, all of those rights,
could come back down to those,
those few women who served our country.
[wind rumbling]
[rain pattering]
[gun firing]
[phone ringing]
[bell chiming]
[fog horn blowing]
[people chattering]
- Reader: Aboard at last after two months
of preparation in the U.S.A.
32 girls in my charge, youngest 19.
One is quite old. 35, I think.
We are the only women on board the ship,
the former Celtic of the White Star line.
With faces glued to the portholes,
we watch the Statue of Liberty fade from sight.
What a responsibility I have on my shoulders.
I've crossed the Rubicon now.
There can be no turning back.
? Over there ?
? Send the word, send the word over there ?
? That the Yanks are coming ?
- It's a war that's sort of lost for Americans.
You know, we know it because we can count. [laughs]
There's one and then there's two.
The United States had never fought a foreign war
of any magnitude and certainly not with allies.
So, how do you work with allies?
How do you cooperate?
How do you get your point across?
And how do you prove that you can do this?
We take it for granted today that the United States
is world's largest military,
and at the time it had really no military at all,
no standing military.
And so they had to improvise in all kinds of ways.
- And so, as things continued to heat up with Germany,
after Wilson wins re-election on his campaign
of keeping America out of the war.
And then there's the so-called Zimmerman Telegram,
which is this message passed along by the German envoy.
This telegram invites the Germans to say to the Mexicans,
"Hey, if you want to go to war against the U.S.,
"we encourage it and we support it.
"We'll help supply you and arm you,
"and if you come out the victor,
"we'll help you get back New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas,
"which you had lost
during the Mexican-American War of 1846 to '48."
Once that's released publicly, Wilson's got no other choice.
He goes before Congress
and he gives perhaps the best speech of his life
on a rainy Monday evening on April 6th, 1917,
and convinces both houses of Congress,
plus the American people,
that it's time for the United States to go to war.
- So, the Army eventually, from a Army of active and reserve
of about 200,000, we'll say, became four million
by the end of the war, November 11, 1918.
So, they had a raise, obviously.
A lotta people had to be brought into the service
and trained and equipped and formed and everything,
so everything in the whole economy
was just focused on the war effort.
Everything in society was focused on the war effort.
You either work or fight,
and so everything, it was really a total war that way.
It was really society as a whole fighting it.
- Who's gonna lead this expedition of forces,
which was known as the AEF?
There really were only two choices.
Pershing, who had experience most recently in Mexico,
and he essentially applied for the job
that he thought was gonna be to lead
whatever American contingent was gonna head over to Europe.
So, he fires off a letter to President Wilson,
and he fires off a similar one to Secretary of War Baker,
and he says, "look, you know, President Wilson,
"I read your speech. it really moved me.
"I agree with you, the United States
"needs to join this conflict, and I'm available,
and I would like to serve in a capacity of leadership."
- So, the Secretary of War was a man named Newton Baker,
and Newton Baker was, I don't know, five foot, four
or something like that, he was kind of a short guy,
and so, he literally looked up to Pershing.
- Pershing is called to Washington
to meet with Baker and then with Wilson,
and he's selected for this position,
and he's given a tremendous amount of latitude.
- And he told Pershing, when he went over,
he said, I'm going to give you only two orders,
go and come back, and everything else is up to you.
[somber music]
- I guess the first thing you need to know
to understand the technology
of the telephone system in the 19-teens
is all telephone calls required at least one human being,
one telephone operator.
If a subscriber wanted to make a call,
they would pick up on the receiver on their telephone,
that would send an electrical signal
where it would cause a light to flash on a switchboard
and an operator would see that light,
plug a cord into, there would be a jack under the light,
and now she was attached to the other end of the line
as the subscriber was.
She would then say, "Number, please."
The subscriber would give her the number of the telephone.
If it were a local call,
the operator would simply then take another cord,
plug it into the jack corresponding to the requested number.
It would ring on the Bell telephone,
and either the subscriber would pick up or not.
Once the call was complete,
she would go on to do another call,
and then eventually watch for the light to go out.
When the light went out,
that meant that the conversation was done
and she could disconnect.
- Well, in the United States,
I mean the Census Bureau and other organizations
sort of looking at what do people in America do
noted at the beginning of the 20th century
that women had really made this occupation their own,
but it was also because, for whatever reasons,
the telephone company thought that women
were really much better at this job than men.
- Oh, first off, why women?
The workforce was, at the time, was very much gendered.
There were women's jobs, there were men's jobs.
You have to remember, this was before women
got the vote across the United States
and women were entering the workforce.
In looking for an alternative workforce,
particularly one that would fill, the initial customers
were largely very affluent business people,
which meant in that time period, largely men.
Other telephone companies started hiring women.
The women worked out very well.
Not surprisingly, adult women were more likely
to give polite, courteous service than teenage boys.
And by the end of the 1880s,
the telephone operating workforce was overwhelmingly women.
- The women were recruited from all over the United States,
and they came from absolutely every corner.
And they all were trained in different locales by AT&T.
But when Pershing got to Paris,
he wasn't thinking about women,
let's recruit women for the Army,
he was just trying to do what we all do,
which is to pick up the phone
and have something happen on the other end.
You could wait on average 60 seconds
for the phone to be connected,
whereas when the women got there,
the average time it took to connect a call was 10 seconds.
And part of it had to do with simply, as the Army said,
"Women have better nerves."
Well, in war time, that difference, 50 seconds,
is the difference between getting killed or not.
And so, within a few months, Pershing put out the order,
and he said to the U.S. War Department,
I want women telephone operators.
I want them uniformed.
And so, it took the Army a couple of months.
They sent out letters and they got 7,600 letters from women
applying for 100 positions.
So, you know, half of the men in the U.S. Army volunteered,
and all of the women volunteered.
[somber music]
["La Madelon de la Victoire"]
- Grace Banker had very strong faith.
That is something she mentions through her diary.
- Yeah, Grace Banker was a 25-year-old college graduate.
- She's on the baseball team, so that's her right there.
And she also did theater, very involved in theater.
So, she was very active.
She majored, I believe she did a double major
of History and French.
She graduated, she went to AT&T.
- Got the very best job a woman
from Barnard College of Columbia University
could get at that time, which was a telephone operator.
- So, she was there until, lo and behold,
she saw and advertisement looking for women
to serve in the Signal Corps overseas.
- As soon as she read in the New York Post
that they were looking for women operators,
she wrote that very day.
- And then, I think it was January of 1918, said,
"I am very interested
and I will serve the duration of the war."
- And to her enormous surprise,
she was made the leader of the expedition.
'Cause there weren't women soldiers
and, therefore, there weren't women officers,
but they needed women officers,
and so they made her the chief operator.
- Reader: I woke in Liverpool after 12 days at sea.
Some American boys were lost, the grip, they say.
It's wartime in England.
Fish soup and awful barley coffee.
The bread, hard as a rock.
[steam whistle blows]
A few days later, we crossed the Irish Sea,
the greenest water I have ever seen.
The passage was dangerous.
I awoke one morning and in the distance, I saw a lighthouse.
The fog lifted and I could see Le Havre itself.
Finally, France.
We took a train to the Hotel Petrograd in Paris.
Rooms were assigned and we went to bed.
It's midnight, and I am so weary.
I worry about my girls.
[whistle blowing] [bombs exploding]
[Grace gasps]
[door opening]
[speaking in French]
[women panting]
[people yelling]
[yelling in French]
[gentle music]
- At that moment, their officer said,
we knew then that they were gonna be okay
'cause those women did not flinch.
- The women, they all wanted to go the front.
They wanted to get to as close
to the front lines as possible.
This was exciting.
It was obviously a very serious job,
but they just wanted to be in it.
- They came back up and the next day, they were ready.
You know, "We're eager, we wanna start,
let us, let's start connecting calls today."
- She walked the line of being a supervisor.
She had this unique ability to be genuine.
She was funny.
She would do pranks with the women.
At the same time, she would also discipline when necessary.
- The women, when they first started,
of course were so excited, so thrilled to be there,
and one of them, the very young Louise LeBreton,
who was 18 masquerading as 21
'cause she thought she wouldn't be chosen otherwise,
one of her first calls was from General Pershing.
- He had just, he wanted to know what the time was.
- And she got off the line,
and she sang out to the telephone exchange,
I just spoke with General Pershing!
- Ah, I just talked to General Pershing!
And she was all excited and all that,
and Grace Banker said, "Come with me,"
and said, "You do not--
We have to be professional. We have a job to do."
- That was how a solider of the United States Army
should comport herself.
- Reader: Colonel Gibbs called and asked me
what I knew about going to the front.
I said I knew nothing.
I have learned to know nothing in the Army.
Middle of the morning, we were told to go back and pack up.
We were already going forward further front.
Suddenly, the rain stopped and the sun came out.
- The telephone operators,
the Hello Girls play a significant role
in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
The largest battle in American history,
both in length, but also in size of participants.
They're relaying messages back and forth.
It's a very chaotic situation.
- When they were at the Army headquarters near Verdun
in the Battle of Meuse-Argonne,
and a German prisoner of war knocked over an oil stove,
the women's barracks were these wooden tinder boxes
that the French had used and they went up in flames.
- Reader: What a day, our barracks burned up
along with several others.
Great funnels of black smoke, licking tongues of flame.
"Get what you can out," someone ordered.
Lucky our switchboard exchange was moved the day before.
The bucket brigade saved it.
After, we searched for our belongings.
My toothbrush came to light in a shoe.
- They knew that if they stopped their work
for even a moment that some battalion could come under fire,
that they would not be able
to get communication back to headquarters,
the Army could not alert then men,
and so they kept connecting calls until finally,
their officers, again, a superior officer ran and said,
"Okay, you have to get out now."
- When the armistice was declared
and basically, the end of the first Army for Grace Banker,
she ended up going to Paris, I believe, was the next place,
It was kind of-- It just fizzled out.
And she eventually did end up in Koblenz
where she did get the Distinguished Service Medal.
[tense music]
I always knew about my grandmother
and what an important role she played,
but what I love to really dwell on
is my mom said, "You would have loved your grandmother."
As I looked through the letters,
she is well-respected by generals and General Pershing
and we're so proud of the work that she did,
but it wasn't her, it was the girls.
They worked together, and she really made a point of saying,
"It was all the girls that she was with."
["For Me and My Gal" by The Stardust Voices ]
? The bells are ringin' ?
? For me and my gal ?
? The birds are singin' ?
- And it was just sort of
part of the dinner table conversation,
very typical 1950s,
and so, stories would get told,
and part of the joke and sort of casual conversation
was my grandmother and grandfather
both serving in Army in World War I
and chasing each other around France
during this romance that they had
while he was the driver and chauffeur and bodyguard
and she was the Signal Corps telephone operator.
Having met my grandfather, would get transferred somewhere
partly because, perhaps, the supervisors
were a little concerned about this young love happening,
nevertheless, "Oh, golly,
do we really want this unfolding love story?"
So, they would transfer my grandmother somewhere
and my grandfather would get transferred.
Wonderful stories of the Signal Corps girls
because, of course, the switchboards
were the pull cord button things,
and in the evenings, if Jack was over here across France
and Addie was over here,
the Signal Corps girls, who are all in on this romance,
would plug them in across the switchboards across France,
so Jack and Addie could talk of an evening,
and there was always the joke
that they were unplugging the generals and saying, "Oops,"
but plugging in Jack and Addie.
[inspiring music]
I have February 1st, 1919.
Permission from the first lieutenant
commanding company officer giving them permission
to be married in France during wartime.
There were some very specific legal requirements
and formalities for marriage for Americans in France.
An American attorney and counselor at law in Paris,
all of the legal requirements that you had to meet
as far as being able to marry,
and buying a ring was the least of his problems
in terms of getting a chance to marry
this cute little farm girl, but what he did, they did
was they did indeed get married.
- Reader: February 2nd, obtained leave to visit Paris.
Arrived at Gare d'Orsay at 8:00 a.m.,
spent morning with Addie,
then went on a hunt for a good-natured minister.
No luck.
Spent evening together, someday.
February 3rd, met with Reverend Goodrich,
who gave the name of an attorney Mr. Lobe,
who assured us it was possible, but not probable
to get all the stamps and signatures today.
Not sure, but hoping.
Then bought wedding ring to hold courage up.
Spent evening together.
The race was on.
February 4th, met Addie at 8:45 a.m.
Had breakfast
and went to the Bureau of Registration,
then to Mayor's Office.
11:25 a.m., married in French
by the mayor of the ninth district,
married to the dearest and sweetest little girl in the world
and sure am some happy, for I love her with all my heart.
[gentle music]
["Titine"]
- Reader: As we sailed out of the New York Harbor,
a young aviator asked me, "Why are you in that uniform?"
I looked him straight in the eye.
"Same as you, I'm on my way to France to help win the war."
- Well, she's a flamboyant person, she had to be.
She had a lot of energy, a lot of energy.
She didn't speak French,
and so she didn't join the Hello Girls until July,
but they needed her by that time
because she was a highly experienced trainer
and especially on those little magneto switchboards
that were gonna go up into the trenches.
And so she trained 60 men one time, in three days,
and the man said, in the group, as they were assembling,
"Well, when do we get our skirt?"
You're not going to get one, but think about this,
that when you're in the trench with your rifle,
you have a rifle.
When you go into the trench with your little magneto,
you could save a whole battalion.
- Reader: I finally went to see the Army doctor.
The infection in my toe was severe.
He took one look and prescribed cold steel,
lanced it without anesthesia.
I think he was surprised when I didn't squeal.
I got to France a week late.
- She stayed longer in France,
she stayed three or four months longer.
She took over as the chief operating officer
in the Paris office when Grace Banker didn't want it.
And she had riotously fun time,
and said that, "I've always thought of her
"as one of those soldiers that they talked about,
"you know, the what are you gonna do
"after they'd been to Paris,
are you gonna get him back on the farm?"
And she would say that, intimate that,
"She didn't wanna go home right away, but then she had to."
She was engaged, they were supposed to be getting married.
Life was gonna intervene.
["Nola"]
[somber music]
- You know, they thought the war
was gonna last another 10 years,
and that's what my mother said when she enlisted
and was sworn in and was going over on the Olympic,
it suddenly hit her that she missed
all her brothers and sisters and certainly her parents,
and she used to leave the room
and go up and hide under a lifeboat
and cry out loud, she said.
She had never been away from home before,
and I think she was still 19,
or I don't know how old she was, 20, I guess.
I said to my mother, what memories do you have
of being in Chaumont?
Did you go, did you see anything to do with the war?
And she said, well, I visited the hospital
to talk to the boys,
and of course, that meant a lot to them
to have an American woman, especially in uniform, walk in,
and she said, I remember seeing one young man
whose arm was mutilated to the shoulder,
the flesh hanging down.
She said, I never saw such a dark look of despair
on a young person's face.
I'll never forget it till the end of my days.
And now, here I am at the end of my life,
my mother told me something extraordinary.
She said, if you live long enough,
you're going to have everything
come full circle and make sense.
So, I've painted all my life,
and I did paint my mother standing probably right there
because that building behind us is in the painting.
[speaking French]
- Woman: I played for the troops last night.
The YMCA director asked me if I could stay in England.
He needed a piano player.
I can't, I said, I've been sworn into the Army,
and I'm going to France.
[tense music]
- At the end, 223 of these women were chosen,
and I am very proud to say that my mom was one of 'em.
She was from a very small town,
it's in Michigan, from Marine City,
and she was of French-Canadian descent.
Spoke some French in the house
and had taken lessons from a Jesuit priest.
And she was chosen and it was a great honor for her
because, you see, her older brother, and here's a picture.
- Interviewer: Oh, yeah. - Of her older brother, who was,
by the way, good-looking one. [laughs]
- Interviewer: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- That's Wallace Joure, also from Marine City,
and they both served.
Now, he was with the First Army quartet,
so we all used to tease him.
I said, "Hey, Uncle Wally,
"your sister was on the front lines,
"you were singing your way, It's a Long Way to Tipperary,
all the way, how did this happen?"
And my mother, who was a pianist, a great piano player,
has played for General Pershing.
In fact, she said the night of the armistice in 1918,
they were all, she was probably
doing a great job on the piano.
- The war came to an end so suddenly
that people didn't see it happening almost.
Although, Berthe Hunt,
who was one of the telephone operators,
took the calls and conveyed those calls to General Pershing,
you know, that an armistice has been signed.
So, in some ways, it took them by surprise
and that it had gone one so long
and then to suddenly stop the 11th hour
of the 11th day of the 11th month.
[artillery firing]
["La Marseillaise"] [patriotic singing in French]
- So, this was really interesting.
I guess, so it's a memento.
- Given to all the operators.
There's my mom's name, Oleda Ruth Joure.
- This book was put together by the Signal Corps men,
and basically, they were letters.
This whole thing is filled with letters in appreciation
in what the Signal Corps and the Hello Girls meant to them.
- Christmas, France, 1918.
The officers and men and the young women of the Signal Corps
have performed their duties with a large--
- Conception of the problem
and with a devoted and patriotic spirit--
- To which the perfection
of our communications daily testify.
[solemn music]
John J. Pershing, Commander in Chief,
American Expeditionary Forces.
You see?
He appreciated them.
- The Hello Girls arrived before most of the doughboys
and left after most of the doughboys were home
because communications are about logistics
and somebody has to help get those guys over there
and help get them back.
So, they were discharged when the Army said,
you know, you can go now,
and so, there, for example, Grace Banker went
and was a part of the occupation of Germany.
We often forget Germany was occupied for a time.
The last telephone operators left
in January of 1920 to come home,
and when they came home, they were told,
"You were never soldiers."
- Merle: Dear Senator Jackson,
I am one of the Signal Corps telephone operators
who enlisted and were sent to France during World War I
to operator Army switchboards.
- Man: Dear Madam, reference is made to your application
of June 16, 1941-- - Merle: Sworn into service--
- Man: For the Purple Heart declaration.
- Merle: We signed no contracts. -Man: Directors of this office--
- Merle: We wore regulation uniforms with Army buttons--
- Man: Was appointed telephone operators.
- Merle: And Signal Corps insignia.
- Man: On January 10-- - Merle: However--
- Man: The members of the Signal Corps--
- Merle: We have never received--
- Man: Overseas Telephone Unit-- - Merle: Our military status.
- Did not possess-- - Merle: And all because Army regulations--
- Military status, but were civilian employees.
- Merle: Read that only males can serve.
- Man: Served overseas as
member of the Signal Corps-- - Merle: Many of our women
are gone now. - Man: Overseas female
telephone unit. - Merle: The government need--
- For more than-- - Merle: To fear no financial burden,
but we do want our recognition to which we are entitled.
- Man: Has not changed inasmuch
as you are not a bona fide member of the Army,
but served in the capacity of a civilian employee,
I regret that you are not eligible.
- Merle: Please, Senator Jackson,
will you work on our team?
We want our rightful place in history.
Sincerely yours, Merle E. Anderson.
- It was mystifying to the women
how they could not have been soldiers
when they were told again and again, you're in the Army now.
And the Army said such things as,
well, you never took the Army Oath.
And they said, well, but in our personnel files,
we have evidence of the many oaths they took,
you know, Oath of Loyalty to the U.S. Army,
which they took multiple times,
especially as they rose in rank.
Every single time, they had to take the oath again.
And then the Army said, well,
you were civilians under contract,
and they said, but we have no civilian contracts.
We signed no contract, we took an oath.
But the Army was never willing to produce the contract.
The Army did not, the Army, I think by that time,
had forgotten even that women had taken oaths
because it went on for decades and decades.
- Right after the war ends, from people, from soldiers,
from private entities, from charities,
all wanting a piece of Pershing to endorse,
whether it's a book, whether it's a fund, anything,
and he reads every letter.
He has his aides respond to every request.
He's mortified by the fact
that we lost so many men in short amount of time
that he spends most of his time
as the Chair of the American Battle Monuments Commission,
so the American contribution to the war is not forgotten,
and he's being pulled in many different directions.
So, I don't think he purposely snubbed the Hello Girls.
He had responsibility as a general
to serve his country and to be apolitical,
but he also had his other feelings
and was that towards the deceased,
those that had been left behind.
- I remember Merle Egan-Anderson got angry
because she ran into some yeomanettes in '20s.
They were in the hospital
and they were being treated as veterans
and that really went up her back.
- You know, they're called yeomaness, yeomanettes,
so there was a Navy Preparedness Act of 1916 that was passed
and it broadened the mandate for the Naval Reserve.
Kinda had a loophole in it.
You can go out and recruit women.
Once the word is on the street
that the Navy can recruit women,
there is a pretty tremendous response.
- Their regulations said, any person that serves,
any person that serves will get their benefits.
They will be veterans.
When the Army wrote their regulations,
one word, they all realized, those that were still living,
one word cost them 60 years.
- And so, there were a group of women who persevered,
but really, their leader became Merle Egan,
and Merle Egan was from Montana,
and she said, I'm a stubborn gal, and I can't give it up.
And so, for years, for decades, they petitioned Congress,
they got bills introduced into the U.S. Senate,
into the House of Representatives.
They contacted newspapers and magazines.
She went to schools to tell school children
so the story wouldn't be lost,
that this knowledge that women
had served the U.S. Army in this profound way
would not just simply disappear in the mist of time.
In a sense, for Merle Egan, the message of old age
was not to slow down but to hurry up.
- One day, I was just reading the newspaper at work,
and I came across this article about this woman
who had been in this telephone operating unit
and had been fighting with the Army ever since,
and it was just really fascinating.
- And Mark Hough contacted Merle Egan
and said, do you need help?
And he's, by this time, by the way, he was in late 20s
and she's in her late 80s.
- I visited her, we talked for quite a while,
and over the next several years became pretty good friends.
- And so, he became part of organizing the legal case.
- It became clear to me
that although there were a lot of good-intentioned people
that had tried to help her along the way,
they'd never actually put it all together
in a form that they could present to somebody
in a more formal manner.
It was more like, "I know somebody that can help you,
and so on and so forth."
There were a couple of people in the American Legion
that she thought could help her,
and they thought they could help her,
but it just never, never panned out.
She thought they had come very close
to getting Congress to do something
or getting the Army to do something
right before the Second World War started,
and, of course, when the war started,
that was a priority for anyone anymore.
- So, she had been organizing the political case
and the public relations case,
but he said, I think there's something here in the law.
And the interesting thing,
the key critical piece of evidence
ultimately became the uniform itself.
And so, if the government hands a uniform
and tells you to wear it,
the government has made you a soldier.
- Well, as a lawyer, I was focused first on
do we have a case here that we could go to court on.
The practical parts of it were not so clear.
The fact that you need people to testify.
Some of them weren't in the best of health,
whether they were capable of traveling to places,
there were a lot of practical questions that made me pause.
- One of the things that they found,
and, actually, the National Organization for Women
told Merle Egan, well, Senator Barry Goldwater
is working out a bill to acknowledge
the women of World War II
who were also dissed by the U.S. government.
- So, when I learned of this legislative activity,
it seemed like a more fruitful avenue.
- And so what happens is that MARCO
and the National Organization for Women
and Merle Egan and Barry Goldwater
and with the help of also congresswomen like Lindy Boggs.
- So, when she was elected to Congress,
one of the women who had been involved with Hello Girls
got in touch with her, had got in touch with the two new
female members of Congress, my mother and Marjorie Holt,
and said, here's what's going on, help us.
She realized, as do many women who go to Congress,
that not only was she representing
the second district of Louisiana, she was representing,
unbeknownst to her, the women of America.
And women came to her with their problems and concerns,
and among them were military women
throughout the 20th century.
So women from World War I, women from World War II
came to her and told her of their stories,
and she was appalled.
She couldn't believe that these women had served so nobly
and been treated so badly.
- We convinced them to expand that legislation
ever so slightly to include--
- The WASPs of World War II
and the Signal Corps women of World War I.
- Reader: Today, the few Signal Corps
telephone operators of World War I who are still living
can celebrate our victory.
The Army has finally admitted we are legitimate.
In 1917,
General Pershing called for American women
to enlist to operate the Army switchboards,
but when the job was finished,
we were told we hadn't been in the Army.
More than 50 bills
were introduced in Congress without success.
In November 1977, a package bill was sent through Congress.
We were finally in the Army.
[inspiring music]
On November 23, 1977,
President Jimmy Carter signed the legislation.
The Signal Corps women of World War I
will have their place in history!
- And then, when she did return, she said,
"You know, it seems like it was so long ago.
"I have moved on, I am now in my civilian clothes."
She was not about the glory.
It was about the girls.
It was about this group of people
who came together to win a war.
People wanted publicity: we want photos,
we want interviews, we want all these letters,
and we want your time, we wanna hear everything.
So, through this whole process
and reading the letters and reading the journals,
I have just been...
absorbed
and it's been a very emotional experience too.
I'm reading about my grandmother
when she was this 25-year-old girl,
and then I come across another folder,
and it's this long lines, it's a communication put up,
I think by, maybe by AT&T, and I flip through,
and it's basically a tribute to her
'cause she had just passed away, yeah...
[choking up]
- The young couple, my grandparents
ended up in Mount Vernon, Washington,
which is a little, tiny town.
First Armistice Day parade, there are the marching units
and so on and so forth down this little town,
and we have a wonderful photo
of my little teeny grandmother in her uniform
is front and center down the middle of Main Street
leading the Armistice Day parade.
My grandfather was so proud of that.
She became a Red Cross Gray Lady,
which had a very specific hospital nurse-type uniform
with even a hospital nurse kind of hat
with the Red Cross on it.
She drove buses and trucks and things for the Red Cross.
You know, tens of thousands of hours
working with the veterans
in occupational therapy kinds of things.
She was interested in stamp collecting.
She spent much of the rest of her life
trying to get recognized,
and I certainly have very clear memories
of her bitter, bitter disappointment.
She was really strong and really functional
until one day she just wasn't.
It would've made a big difference for her
because she, she was very much respected
by her community for her service.
She was respected by her family.
So, I'm glad that they did eventually get recognized.
I wish she had lived to see it.
- And so, when I say that my mother
when she received her discharge papers in 1978,
60 years after the war ended,
Mother stood in front of the flags,
and the general handed the discharge papers
and spontaneously, she raised it to her lips and kissed it.
Well, the local newspaper and the aides and the General
all went crazy, do that again!
She said, "Well, you know, this one was genuine, you know?"
But then, she looked at the General and she said,
"So where are my back paychecks?"
He didn't even smile because they actually
had just admitted
she had been in the Army for 60 years.
[gentle music]
[laughs]
- This is her honorable discharge
from the American Expeditionary Force,
and I think it's dated 1919.
This is what she got.
Now, I'll tell you why my mother wanted to be a veteran.
The only thing she ever wanted was a flag on her grave,
and thank you.
And that's pretty much my mom's story.
["My Buddy" by Gelnn Frey]
? Mom, nights are long ?
? Since you went away ?
? I think about you ?
? All through the day, my buddy ?
? My buddy, nobody quite so true ?
? I miss your voice, the touch of your hand ?
? I long to know that you understand, my buddy ?
[gentle piano music]
- She was 96 when she died,
and she told me that she had a heart condition.
It was a heart condition that could have been easily fixed,
and even at her age
because she was in pretty good shape otherwise.
And she told me, "Look, I'm 96 years old.
"All my friends are dead,
"my hand shakes so much, I can't read a book anymore,
"and my quality of life is such
that I don't think I wanna prolong things, so."
- No. [pffft]
Nope.
- Reader: You know, I love my country,
and, therefore, I want my country to be worth loving.
I stood by my word.
I want my country to stand by its word to me.
- Guard Leader: Right.
- Guards: One, two, three, four, five, six.
- Guard Leader: Right, aim, hup.
[guns fire]
Right. - One, two, three.
- Soldier: Aim, hup.
[guns fire]
Right. - One, two, three.
- Guard Leader: Aim, hup.
[guns fire]
Right. - One, two, three.
- Guard Leader: Present. - Present.
- Guard Leader: Arms. - Close step, close hup.
["Taps"]
- History is about understanding where we come from,
and if we don't see that start of that trail,
we can't really understand how things change
and why they change when they do.
We need to trace that trail back,
and for women in the military,
this is where that trail begins in World War I.
- So, it's important that we learn these stories.
It's important that we tell these stories.
It's important,
not only for our girls to know these stories,
in some ways, it's even more important
for our boys to know these stories
so that they understand the contributions
women have been making to this country from the beginning.
- So to the youth in the nation, I say,
history is important, but to veterans of this nation,
I say, talk to your families, talk to your kids.
Get in the schools, and tell your stories.
- Men know their history.
We want our history.
- Somehow, we had to get this memorial built,
and it had to tell the story of these people,
not just a statue, not just a pillar,
but someway, we had to be able to show
what the history, the real history was
and what women had done and how many did it.
- To the Telephone Girl.
- To the Telephone Girl, written by Francis H. Johnson.
- From the cratered hells of no man's land
to the switchboard where you sit.
- There are none who serve so loyally.
We know you do your bit.
- For the world's bound 'round with a copper wire,
with you on the outer end.
- Each flashing light that you plug in the night,
the message of hope you send.
- You sit all alone at a magic loom,
and weave from out of the air.
- The words of faith, of home, of love.
- That go to our boys out there.
- For the war's not won with the bursting shells.
- Shrapnel or cannon alone.
- You're doing your part with all your heart,
[inspiring music]
little girl
of the telephone.
? Pine, to be proud her boy's in line ?
? Over there, over there ?
? Send the word, send the word over there ?
? That the Yanks are coming ?
? The Yanks are coming ?
? The drums rum-tumming everywhere ?
? So prepare, say a prayer ?
? Send the word, send the word to beware ?
? We'll be over ?
? We're coming over ?
? And we won't come back till it's over ?
? Over there ?
? Over there, over there ?
? Send the word, send the word over there ?
? That the Yanks are coming ?
? The Yanks are coming ?
? The drums rum-tumming everywhere ?
? So prepare, say a prayer ?
? Send the word, send the word to beware ?
? We'll be over ?
? We're coming over ?
? And we won't come back till it's over ?
? Over there ?
? Johnnie, get your gun ?
? Get your gun, get your gun ?
? Johnnie show the hun you're a son of a gun ?
? Hoist the flag and let her fly ?
? Yankee Doodle do or die ?
? Pack your little kit ?
? Show your grit, do your bit ?
? Yankee to the ranks ?
? From the towns and the tanks ?
? Make your mother proud of you ?
? And the old red, white, and blue ?
? Over there, over there ?
? Send the word, send the word over there ?
? That the Yanks are coming ?
? The Yanks are coming ?
? The drums rum-tumming everywhere ?
? So prepare, say a prayer ?
- Announcer: The Hello Girls
is available for purchase
at lincolnpennyfilms.com.