“The young women in the Marine Corps, they always, always, always honor those that have gone before. You know, she’ll say, ‘If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I’ve done.’” —Arlene Swinford

Some of our favorite stories surpassed expectations. For instance, we integrated the following quote by Vera Nelson to coordinate with the carousel: “I loved it there at the college until I went into the post office that day in July of ‘43 and saw that picture of a beautiful Marine girl in uniform with the big slogan that said, ‘Be a Marine and Free a Marine to Fight!’ And I thought silently to myself, ‘I think I can free two of ‘em.’ So, I enlisted in August of 1943. I went to boot camp in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in the fall. I remember October in North Carolina was beautiful. All the trees looked like a Persian carpet, yellow and gold and brown. But all I saw was the back of Millie Lancer’s head.“

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