HOWARD — Howard resident Sarah Moxley was a Vietnam-era Marine, then served in the National Guard and later worked in the Knox County Veterans Service Office. She joined the U.S. Marine Corps just after her graduation from Mount Vernon High School in 1964, as soon as she reached her 18th birthday.
Basic training for female Marines at that time was conducted at the Parris Island base in South Carolina, and the women were kept totally separate from the male recruits. Moxley said her platoon, 15A, had one male drill sergeant; the rest of the officers were women.
The training consisted of military history, rules and regulations, typing and clerking skills, and physical training, including swimming. The women also had to qualify with gas masks, but received no weapons or hand-to-hand combat training. Free time, Moxley said, was spent writing letters or polishing boots, shoes or anything that needed polishing.
All clothing worn was military issue except for underwear, girdles, garter and stockings. All the women had to wear girdles at that time, something not required today. Moxley said the women had one-piece swim suits and bathing caps, and did have slacks — “utilities” — for certain duties. Utilities included a shirt, pair of pants, regular socks, low quarter shoes and a cover (hat or cap.)
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After basic training, Moxley was assigned to Camp Pendleton, near Oceanside, Calif. Women Marines did administrative tasks, taking over those duties for male Marines deployed overseas. She first worked in a warehouse, tracking and shipping household goods for Marines deployed overseas, then worked in the Provost Marshall’s office, performing tasks related to vehicle registration.
Discharged in April 1966, Moxley had earned the rank of lance corporal, or E-3.
Missing the sense of camaraderie she found in the Marines, Moxley joined the Army National Guard in 1976. There, she said, she found the trust and friendships and common purpose rare in civilian life.
“It was just something I wanted to do,” she said. “Also, Jim (Earnest Jim Moxley) asked me to join. I joined the Guard in 1976, went to summer camp in Grayling, Mich., then Jim and I were married the following year in Grayling, Mich. He had planned to do a 20-year turn, and he did.”
Moxley said basic training in the National Guard was a little bit different than what she had as a Marine. Women received weapons training, and the biological/chemical warfare training was more extensive. Moxley left the Guard in 1981, partly because it wanted to send her someplace else, and partly because of the increasingly stringent weight requirements.
“At the time in the Guard,” she said, “you had to run four miles in an hour and for somebody who had sedentary jobs, four miles in an hour is picking them up and putting them down. Also, the politics of the Guard got to a point that I didn’t want to be in the Guard any more.”
She left with an E-5 rating.
Moxley continued serving others, however. She worked in the Knox County Veteran’s Service Office, then served as the Knox County Veteran’s Service Officer until her retirement in 2005. While there, she helped other veterans with service-connected compensation and pension benefit claims.
Moxley would like Veterans Day to have a more prominent place in American society.
“I feel that we need to bring Veterans Day to the forefront of holidays and give it more attention,” she said. “When I was a kid, we got Veterans Day off. Now it’s just an extra day. Schools don’t close. Everybody has Veterans Day sales.
“I fear that if we forget our veterans during the year we may have to relive some terrible times. ... Someone once said the best way to judge a country is how they treat their veterans, and I think that veterans are shortchanged a little bit when it comes to Veterans Day.”
News staff Reporter Kimberly Orsborn assisted with this article.
