Page 4 - Veterans.2017

4 – Saturday, November 11, 2017 – El Dorado NEWS-TIMES
Taylor: Continued from Page 2
his mail everyday from my desk and he kept ask- ingmeforadate,butI was dating another sailor at the time. One day he saw me as I had just said goodbye to the guy I was seeing and as the Lord would have it, we started dating that very day."
After three months of dating, Alvin proposed and the couple got mar- ried March 16, 1963. He’d receive orders to report aboard the U.S.S. Interdictor, a radar picket ship, three months later, she wrote.
“Now you can stay in and get married. Back then, if you were married you could stay in but if your husband got trans- ferred somewhere else, which (Alvin) did, they didn’t care. You had to stay at your duty station and he would just leave, so that was what hap- pened,” Taylor said.
The Navy veteran took time to mention how serving as a woman is dif- ferent from her time in the 1960s, when women didn’t go out to sea with the men.
“The only ones that might have gone on ship were the doctors, or corpsmen, the nurses ...
They would have duty sometimes on a hospi- tal ship or if they were needed, they were flown in. Now they’re assigned duty and stay out there with the men,” she said. “I just can’t see how that would work ... Sailors get kind of feisty, you know, especially when they’ve been out to sea for a long time. You can imagine. I couldn’t have handled that.”
Taylor also said that women can get married, start a family and still serve in the armed forces.
“Back then if we got pregnant, it was an auto- matic discharge from that and it’s just different,” she said.
The former yeoman also laid out the perks of her military service and noted that she was awarded the “WAVE of the Month” award once. “WAVES were sort of set up on a pedestal,” she said.
“We were treated better than the men were. We really were because we could eat in the officers’ mess hall whereas the men couldn’t,” she said. “We got to go with the officers and sit at tables. The sailors, they had to go and sit at these long (tables) like in a prison where they’re all congre- gated together and we had tablecloths on our tables and it was really
nice.”
One moment she’d never
forget was when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. The sailors held a memorial service at the base to honor the former commander in chief, she said.
“Wehadtoallbeinour beautiful dress clothes, stand at attention and wait on the Secretary of State (Dean Rusk) to come in on a helicopter to speak to us and tell us what would happen now since President Kennedy was killed,” she said. “This is something funny that happened. When the helicopter comes down, it's really windy. The woman in charge of all of us WAVES, she knew that this was going to hap- pen and she said ‘When the helicopter lands, I’m going to say ‘hand salute’ and you put your hand on your hat so it won’t blow off.’ That’s what we did ... The men didn’t think about this, so there were 10,000 hats flying every- where.”
Because she wanted to stay close to her husband, Taylor said she asked to be honorably discharged in 1964 after three years of service.
“I decided that I would get out because when his ship would come in, he would come into San
Office: Sharon Taylor worked in the security office at Naval Base San Diego.
Graduation: Sharon Taylor wore her dress whites for basic training graduation. She lived in the barracks in the background for 10 weeks.
Yeoman School: Sharon Taylor was trained at the Yeoman 'A'School before starting her service at the security office.
Francisco, which was a long way from San Diego ... I fulfilled my obligated duty,” she said. “In fact if I hadn’t gotten married I would have stayed in ... for 20 years or how- ever long they would let me stay. To me I loved serving my country. I just thought it was wonderful. I enjoyed my work, the way they treated us and the honor of it all because it was an honorable thing to do.”
Taylor said she loves talking to young women who consider enlisting in the military and while
it may be tough, it’s an honor to serve.
“I don’t know how the boot camp would be now ... but it was tough back then. I warn girls that I have talked to that it’s not easy to get through the swimming and the marching. We did a lot of marching. I still have bad feet because of my marching. I got bunions from all that marching,” the veteran said.
Today, she celebrates Veterans Day at the Medical Center of South Arkansas, where she vol- unteers with the Pink
Ladies.
“Before I moved here,
I had a home in Junction City and the school always invited me for their Veterans Day cele- bration ... I’m a Pink Lady and they always have a Veterans Day thing and I go out for that, too,” she said.
Brittany Williams may be reached at 870-862-6611 or bwilliams@eldoradonews. com. Follow her on Twitter and like her on Facebook @BWilliamsEDNT for updates on Union County school news.
WAVES of the Navy
WAVES of the Navy,
there’s a ship sailing down the bay
and she won’t slip into port again until that Victory Day.
Carry on for that gallant ship and for every hero brave
who will find ashore, his man- sized chore
was done by a Navy WAVE.
— Elizabeth Ender
In memory of those who served....
In honor
of those who serve now.
Security: Sharon Taylor joined the security office staff at Naval Base San Diego.
HONORING & REMEMBERING
THE BRAVE VETERANS
WHO FOUGHT... TO GIVE US A SAFE AND PEACEFUL PLACE TO LIVE IN!
Husband: Sharon Taylor's husband, Al- vin, also served in the Navy.
Thank You To Those Who Served
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