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Cpl Ruth B. Horgan Oral History
Publication date: 30 July 2024
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title:
Cpl Ruth B. Horgan Oral History
creator:
Horgan, Ruth Barbara (Metro)
subject:
Marine Corps Women's Reserve
description:
Ruth B. Horgan (formerly Metro) join the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve in July 1944 from a recruiting station in Los Angeles, California. She went to basic training at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and didn’t find it unpleasant, just disciplined. After basic, she was assigned to the casualty section at the Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, DC, which is where she worked for the entirety of her service. This office was responsible for sending notices of injuries and death to next of kin, which included the date and general descriptions of injuries. Her job in this office was to get the personnel folders of each Marine with descriptions of their injuries in grizzly and highly medicalized terms, and rewrite the injury descriptions with easier to understand language. They also selected who would be sent these notices. She and all of the other women in the office found the job very difficult, and morale was generally very low, especially for the women in her position who went through the files to find pertinent information. She was here during Iwo Jima, and remembers having to process 200-300 files each day. The Red Cross was integral to the office finding all appropriate next of kin, Horgan doesn’t think the office would have been nearly as functional without their support. She got married while serving here, traveling up to her husband’s station in Maine while on leave for the ceremony. Humor was the key to survival, helping herself and the other women get through their incredibly difficult job every day. Horgan left the service in February 1946 having reached the rank of corporal, and for her service she was awarded an American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal. A transcript of this interview is available.
publisher:
Military Women's Memorial Foundatino
contributor:
Vitale, Joan
date:
2003-01-11
type:
Audio
format:
Cassette
identifier:
449; 2003.449
source:
CLIR - Recordings at Risk
language:
English
relation:
199995
coverage:
World War II (1939-1945) | 1944-46
rights:
Unrestricted