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1LT Laurin C. Balkam Oral History Tape 1, Side A
Publication date: 17 July 2024
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title:
1LT Laurin C. Balkam Oral History Tape 1, Side A
creator:
Balkam, Laurin (Cooper) (1922 August 22 - )
subject:
Marine Corps Women's Reserve
description:
Tape 1 of 2, side 1 of 2. This is the original, unedited audio. Laurin C. Balkam was born August 22, 1922 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her family travelled as her father renovated sugar factories in Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic throughout her childhood. Because of this, she spoke both English and Spanish. She graduated from McMain High School for Girls at 16 in New Orleans, and attended business school around 1941 where she met her husband as he visited the area from Massachusetts. She enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1943 because the Army and the Navy were not accepting women at the time, and her age delayed enlistment. Balkam went to Hunter College in the Bronx, New York for basic training. This was primarily a Naval training center for women, but Marine women trained there at the time because logistics for training them hadn't been fully organized. She faced open resentment from her training officer because he was assigned to training women instead of being in the Pacific fighting. She went to storekeepers’ school and was sent to Edenton, North Carolina after camp. After her husband received commission from the military, she was sent to Officer Training School in 1944, where she advanced from Private, to PFC (Lance Corporal did not exist for the Women's Marines), to Corporal. Balkam describes being assigned to the Office of the Commandant as a secretary, as the Marine with the highest clerical aptitude ever (of both men and women?), including the social climate she found herself in. She recounts teaching Spanish at the previous American Union and classes for other women Marines. She left the Marines Corps Women’s Reserve in August 1946. No transcript of this interview is currently available.
publisher:
Military Women's Memorial Foundation
contributor:
Byrne, Tricia
date:
2001-11-16
type:
Audio
format:
Cassette
identifier:
044.01; 2002.044
source:
MCHC | CLIR - Recordings at Risk
language:
English
relation:
324262
coverage:
World War II (1939-1945) | 1943-46
rights:
Unrestricted