Sharing Our Stories

Brenda J. Swift
Rate specialist accounting
Atlanta

I joined the Marines in 1964. I didn’t start out to join, it just happened. I wanted to get away from home and see the world. I had just quit a good job working for the Internal Revenue Service in Philadelphia, and I knew my mother would be furious. Getting out of high school and landing a government job was the ultimate. However, I did not like the job. So I quit one morning and went to the Naval Yard to see if I could get hire there. 

They had a freeze on jobs at that time. A Marine Corps officer walked by, and I asked him how could I join the service. He immediately took me up to see a woman corporal and I took 5 sets of test that very day. I was the only one there that afternoon. 

I thought the women could join at 18 years old like the men. I was told that the women had to be 21 years old. I was only 20 at the time, however I would turn 21 in about eight months. Therefore, my parents had to sign for me. Women could join for two years active and one-year reserves duty. So, home I went, scared and afraid they would not let me go. 

It was a Monday, and I had to be back that Wednesday to take my physical. 

I went home and told my mother that I had joined, but I didn’t tell her that she had to sign at the moment. After she called all my family, grandmother, aunt, stepfather and so on, I decided to let her know that she had to sign. My stepfather said to let me go and find out how hard it would be. After all, I would be 21 in eight months. 

So she signed reluctantly, and I took my physical that Wednesday. I found myself on a plane going to Parris Island, S.C., that following Monday. They processed me in one week. I didn’t even have a chance to change my mind. Since it was doing the Vietnam War, they were not taking any chances for anyone to change their minds.

The women were there to free the men to fight. Women did not fight as they do today. However, we went through the same training as the men. The Marines have a saying that they make men. I think they were trying to make men out of women also. 

I did my nine-weeks of training at Parris Island, and when graduation day came it felt like a thousand pound load was taken off my shoulders. It was rough. I was one of 80 girls who entered basic training with only 40 graduating. They did not give us any breaks for being women in training. We trained just like the men did, and men were training us.

My next duty station was in Camp Pendleton, California. I stayed there for the next two years. It was fun. I would really do it again -- if I didn’t have to go through basic training.

When we left basic, we were so gung-ho that we didn’t want to take off our uniforms.

Now, I knew why their motto is "The Few. The Proud. The Chosen . The Marines.”  When my two years active duty was over, I went back home and did my one-year reserves time in the Pennsylvania National Guard with the Military Police unit.  

I proudly display my Marine emblems on my car, because I earned every right to be a Marine.  I’m one of the few, the proud, the chosen, a Marine. Semper Fi.