MGySgt Rosemarie Weber, USMC Ret. Oral History

title:

MGySgt Rosemarie Weber, USMC Ret. Oral History

creator:

Weber, Rosemarie "Rosie" (Davis) (1961 March 21 - )

subject:

Marine Corps

description:

Rosemarie Weber (formerly Davis) was born on March 21, 1961 in Salinas, California. She would have graduated from high school in 1979 but left early to join the military since at the time they did not require women to have a high school diploma. She had run away from home, and the woman who looked after her said she had to find a job by the end of the day, so Rosemarie decided on a whim to go to the recruitment office. Partially due to different education requirements, she ended up choosing to enlist in the Marine Corps in late 1979. She went to basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina in January 1980. She went to advanced training at Fort Underwood, Missouri to train as a heavy equipment operator. When she made it to her first assignment after training at Camp Pendelton, California, there were about 11 women in her battalion, and all but 3 of them worked in the administrative office. She was one of the women who wasn’t in admin, but one day they talked her into changing to administrative work because the conditions outside had been so tough to work in compared to the nice, warm office. From there, she went to Okinawa, Japan with her two children and husband she had met while at Fort Underwood. After a year there, she returned to Parris Island for Drill Instructor School, but had to drop out after hurting her foot. She worked there as an administrator until her foot healed, then returned to drill instructor training. From there, she went to the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina, from which she deployed to Okinawa, the Philippines, Korea, Thailand, and other locations in the Western Pacific. She was briefly stationed in Massachusetts, went through a divorce from her husband, and returned to Beaufort, where she was for three months before getting called up to the Marine Corps headquarters as the admin chief for the Seargeant Major of the Marine Corps. She was bouncing around offices there until being deployed for six months in Iraq starting in June 2003. Her whole deployment there, she felt morale was high on the part of the Americans, both military and civilian, and that servicepeople’s reception by Iraqis in Baghdad greatly depended on their age, but was rarely overtly or aggressively hostile. This isn’t to say that they were completely safe. Scarier than being shot from her perspective was the increasing use of IEDs, because they were much harder to see, anticipate, or deal with in the moment, and made people feel like they had to be on red alert all the time. Even worse, however, was seeing how willing some troops who had not been shot at were to aim and possibly fire at Iraqis who posed not credible or active threat to them. She decided to return from Iraq in October when her job was completed and she could tell she was getting too paranoid and jumpy. She was still in the service as of her interview. Weber retired a year later, in 2006, having reached the rank of Master Gunnery Sergeant, and for her service she was awarded a Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal with 2 bronze stars, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Navy Commendation Medal with a bronze star, Joint Service Achievement Medal, Navy Achievement Medal with a bronze star, Navy Unit Commendation, Meritorious Unit Citation, Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation with 3 stars, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal with 1 silver and 2 bronze stars, National Defense Service Medal with 1 bronze star, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, Navy Sea Service Deployment Ribbon with 2 bronze stars, Marine Corps Drill Instructor Ribbon, Secretary of Defense Staff Service Badge, Rifle Expert (3rd Award) Badge, and Pistol Expert (3rd Award) Badge. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate | Ghajar, LeeAnn

date:

2005-07-25

type:

Moving Image

format:

Hi-8

identifier:

978.02; 2005.978

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

008504

coverage:

Gulf War | Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq)—2003-2011 | 1976-2003

rights:

Unrestricted