February 24, 2020 • 23 mins
100-year-old World War II Marine veteran Norman Rubin remembers the Great Depression. He remembers eating as much as could be put on a plate in front of him as a hungry kid. He remembers his father leaving at 10 years old and his brothers working to help his mother. He remembers reading about how the Marines traveled all over the world, and his mother helping him lie about his age so that he could enlist at 17. He remembers how the Marines clothed and fed him and gave him a job and so that’s why he’d signed up--not because anyone suspected that a World War lay ahead.
Four years later, and he couldn’t get out.
Follow along in this hearty story of Service as Norm ate well on the USS Pennsylvania, was the orderly for President Roosevelt, defended British soldiers on Iceland, and stormed islands in the Pacific.
You can hear more about Norm’s lifelong love story in our episode - All’s Fair in War and Lasting Love - and read more at www.ServicePodcast.org, where you can also share your Service stories and leave messages for all of the veterans you hear on Service. And we’re always sharing extra audio and nerdy food history on social media - we’re @servicepodcast on Instagram and Facebook.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode re enacts scenes of war and includes gunfire.
Listener discretion advised, you're tuning into service Johnny Strict private
first class veteran stories of hunger and war. They joined
the service. Remember Pearl Harbor. Remember Pearl Harbor, a production
(00:21):
from I Heart Radio. We used to just give these
people the food from our biscuits. You ain't what you
could get, and be thankful well what you were getting.
I'm your host, Jacqueline Reposo, what sets a World War?
(00:43):
To Marina. Part of the over sixteen million men who
would come to fight for the United States in World
War Two, only six hundred and sixty thousand of them
were Marines. That six hundred and sixty thousand compared to
over four million in the Navy or eleven million in
the Army. Norman Ruben was one marine among them. Born
(01:07):
in nineteen nineteen, Norm was only ten when the stock
market crash plunged the country into the Great Depression, leaving
many jobless and hungry and standing in the breadlines we've
talked about in episodes past. By seven, another recession had
curbed any progress starting to be made, and so many
young men tried to enlist just to get fed. Norm
(01:30):
was lucky. He got in Norm was unlucky. In seven
we still didn't see a world war coming. And so
now from his home in Spokane, Washington, let's slow and
sit and spend some time with one hundred year old
(01:50):
Norman Reuben. My name is Norman Reuben. I was born
in Philadelphia in nineteen nineteen. My father was a fine
(02:12):
furrier that came over from Russia, and my mother came
from Russia also. We lived in the Russian neighborhood and
talked Russian. At eight Russian she went up to Seventh
Street where all of the push carts were. She would
(02:32):
go to see what they were selling. At whatever they
were selling, she bought everything you could eat. They sold fruit, vegetables, meat, fish,
everything right out of their push carts. Owned by people
from all over Philadelphia. They would open on a Thursday
(02:57):
and close out on a Sunday. Everybody in South Philadelphia
was worn those streets at that time, and they were
by and she made a meal out of it. That
was it, and you ate it no matter what it was.
(03:26):
When I was ten years old, my father left my mother.
I was about sixteen years old, right in the middle
of the depression, going to Overbrook High School, trying to
get a job so I could help my mom. I
had two brothers. My oldest brother was living with us
(03:51):
working as a drug store attendant, and my brother Jack
helped him. That helped everything. But we had a closet,
and we had an encyclopedia, and I've read all about
the Pacific. That was excited about that. The papers sometimes
(04:12):
advertised the marines down in South America, and I had
never been to South America as a kid, and that
sounded like it would be a good idea. Get away
from the family, make money, have clothing. That was one
less mouth to feed. That helped make me go to
(04:33):
the Marine Corps recruiting station. You had to be eighteen
to join the Marine Corps. He asked when I was born,
which it was October first, nineteen nineteen, but I told
him nineteen eighteen. Because there was seventeen thousand, three hundred
(04:57):
marines all over the world, they were taken ten marines
of months. At that stage of the game, they sent
a man around to talk to my mother. She played
the game with me. We lost my birth certificate. Well
that was a lie to begin with, and so consequently
(05:19):
they hired me in at eighteen years of age. They
bade the arrangements for me to get a train to
Parish Island, South Carolina. Ten future Marines walked down to
a boat landing, got on the boat, told where to sit.
(05:43):
Shut up. They rode on that river up to the
base where there were steps that looked like there were
three stories high. We had to walk up the steps
and stop at the first story, then the second story,
and then the third story. That's where the mess hall was.
(06:06):
We sat down and they brought us food. They just
bought plates of food. We ate until there was no
food left. Corned beef, roast beef. The rest was potatoes
and vegetables. They were never going to get rid of us.
I'll tell you. We ate until we were sick. Almost
(06:30):
of the ten of us, eight were sent home. Two
of us went to Platoon one. We were sent down
to where the supply room was where they issued uniforms.
I was a senior in high school. I went to
the Marine Corps and Parasi Island fed me and clothed me,
(06:51):
and they fed me pretty good. They had a man
for life. That was in Jabuay. Seven. They transferred me
to Philadelphia. They were just building the new cruisers, the Philadelphia,
(07:13):
the Brooklyn, the Savannah. I was assigned to the U.
S S. Philadelphia. I put her in commission. I never
missed a meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Where they did
the cooking was up on the top deck. The second
(07:35):
deck down is where you sat. You had benches that
fit up on the ceiling, and you had to clean
all that up and put those benches up before they
would turn you loose. The Marines provided two men for
the benches, and they just kept bringing food to your
(07:56):
table in bowls, and whoever emptied a bowl lest had
the bowl up in his hand yelling orderly, and you
had all you could eat everything that they could make.
I ate any kind of food. They would always have
met Friday evening they had hamburgers. Saturday mornings they had
(08:20):
hot dogs, and everything was eaten, nothing taken back, no garbage.
Because it was the middle of the depression, a lot
of our boys were fresh out of college. Course, the
family couldn't keep them in college, so they joined the Marines.
And it was wonderful aboard the Philadelphia because the Philadelphia
(08:44):
carried the flag and that was where the admiral was
the admiral was in his stateroom on the port side,
the captains was on the starboard side, and each one
had their own cooks. In October of nineteen fifteen, African
(09:10):
American sailors stationed on the USS Philadelphia sent a letter
to the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier detailing their work
as chambermaids and dishwashers, making beds and shining shoes, noting
the unequal pay they were given compared to white sailors
with less training or experience, how they didn't sit at
tables to eat but had to make do standing, how
(09:30):
their rations were sometimes meager so to pad the officers meals.
This is not something we've not heard from our veterans.
This season, my brother and two of his friends joined
the Navy. My father was upset because of Afro American background.
The Navy on accept them as mess attendants. They had
black sailers under roadan ammunition and Lodan ammunition and blew
(09:55):
whelp and killed over a hundred of them. From that
day on, Black sailers didn't, Lauren do that kind of work.
You can't blame them. And so let's consider the political
theory of divide and rule here, or divide and conquer,
as used in military strategy. How do oligarchs maintain power
or extreme wealth. They pit struggling oppressed groups against each
(10:18):
other so that they blame each other and fight for
what little they can get. And so, while we should
respect that all of this season's veterans were hungry and
desperate for work before World War Two, let's also hold
that African Americans suffered unemployment rates double the national average
during the Great Depression, and that upon publication of their letter,
(10:39):
the fifteen Black Sailors were dishonorably discharged from the Navy.
We'll be right back, ye, Welcome back to service veteran
(11:07):
stories of hunger and war from my Heart Radio. I'm
Jacqueline propos O. Norm spent two years aboard the Philadelphia,
largely in the Caribbean, and then, as we're about to hear,
found himself stationed in Iceland, which was a sovereign kingdom
in personal union with Denmark, both staunchly neutral countries at
this point in the war. But then Germany invaded Denmark
(11:31):
in April of nine, and so Britain invaded Iceland the
following month, facing almost no resistance from the minuscule Icelandic
military and eventually bringing in troops from Canada to defend
the vital Port Island. As we were still technically neutral
as well, Roosevelt waited for a proper invitation from the
Icelandic government before sending marines over to protect the Icelanders
(11:54):
and British troops there. But as we well know by now,
on December seven, everything would change, and that would especially
be so for those already in the marines. My job
(12:18):
was gun striker of gun number one on the bridge
of the starboard side. There were four guns on the
starboard side, four guns on the port side. That was
the Navy's job port side. On the starboard side that
we'd had gun number one and the machine guns up
(12:41):
on the top of the bridge with the twenty millimeters
which was a new gun at that time, to guard
the ship. I tried being a good marine and they
made me the captain's orderly. My job was to stand
in front of his cabin's door announcing the executive officer's
(13:03):
request for permission to see the captain stop anybody from
trying to get in or get out. So that's what
our job was in the navy, to be the captain's orderlies,
the admiral's orderlies, the president's orderlies. The President got on
(13:26):
the ship in the navy yard in South Carolina, and
I was assigned as the President's orderly except when we
met with Churchill in the South Atlanta. He was on
the h M S Hood. I was assigned to the
barge that picked up Churchill from HMS Hood. They had
(13:51):
a meeting for two and a half hours and we
stood at attention outside their cabin, after which we sent
church Chilled back to his small boat back to the
Philadelphia and the way we went that was. At that
(14:11):
time the war was on in Europe. The Germans have
been bombing London, so the Marines were providing food and ammunition.
So I couldn't get out of the Marine Corps because
they locked everybody up that were in the Marine Corps.
I'm almost twenty years old sitting with the first Marine
(14:35):
Brigade in Iceland protecting an army unit that came out
of Europe and was attacked by the Germans in France.
The Germans sent planes over and you could see them
flicking their cameras taking pictures of our positions. We were
(15:01):
up there when Pearl Harbor was attacked. I was sent
(15:39):
to the eleventh Marines, an artillery unit attached to the
first Marine Division on Guadalcanal that went to Tinyan, Si Pan, Bougainville,
and so forth. The Marines assaulted the islands and took
them back from a Pan. I was a master gun
(16:03):
resurgeant then in charge of getting everybody ready to go
to war, keep them loaded with ourtillery and also small
gun fire and other things. We had hundred and five
millimeter guns. In addition to that, we had one fifty
(16:25):
five millimeter tanks guns that can shoot twenty five miles.
The artillery is called in by the infantry, and as
a master gun resergeant, I was told by our officers
what we were shooting, and how we were shooting, and
(16:48):
where we are shooting, and when we are shooting, what
coordinates to get who was on the coordinate. The infantry
of the Marines. You don't want to hit them, you
want to get of them. So with them. There are
artillery observers on the front lines listening to the captains
(17:13):
in charge of his infantry people. When he's told to move,
he tells the artillery, we're moving and you're to cover
US as far north to coordinate, so and so they
know exactly where they're gonna hit. What I really remember,
(17:42):
I was sitting on Guam getting ready to go into Japan.
The US Navy went into the Sea of Japan and
fired upon the Japanese Navy anchored within or most area.
(18:05):
We were all prepared a board ship for landing near Yokohama.
We heard the General in charge of the Marines requiring
the General of the Japanese Army is surrender. We were
excited to think that he was demanding the surrender of
(18:28):
Japan because we knew that the Japanese army was different.
Wherever the Japanese went. The Japanese dug in and everything,
My fellow Americans, the thoughts and hopes of all America,
(18:50):
indeed of all the civilized world, our center tonight on
the battleship Missouri. There on that small piece of American
style anchored in Tokyo Harbor. The Japanese have just officially
laid down their arms. They have signed terms of unconditional surrender.
(19:14):
When it happened, all I could think of, could I
get a phone call to my wife, Marjorie. She had
put up with me through the war. She was a beautiful, wonderful,
full blooded nurse from the Women's Hospital Philadelphia. She was
(19:38):
just one marine's wife. I'll tell you it was just
ecstatic for me to be able to talk to her,
and I did on a Sunday afternoon in Guam, and
they had to pull the full away from my ear
(20:05):
Norman and Marjorie had gotten married in January of nineteen
forty one, and he says, more than any food he
missed during the war, he missed Marjorie. He didn't receive
any packages overseas because the first Marine Battalion were taking
and retaking these Pacific islands and many didn't have message
center set up. You had to bully a hook or
(20:26):
a crook one of the other to get it done.
Norm state of the Marines through the Korean War and
the Cold War, deciding to retire in the summer of
nineteen fifty nine. I'd retired as a major because Marjorie
and I had a son, and it just seemed like
(20:46):
Marjorie had had enough of the Marine Corps. Because if
you're a marine, you're a marine. That's it. You're not
a part marine, you're a whole marine. And you're just
made to go to war. And I asked more agree
if she would put up with me going to San
Diego State, and she said absolutely, and so that's what
(21:08):
we did. The Marine Corps was my greatest thing I
ever did, beside Mary and the most beautiful lady in
the world. And she was a beautiful mother that raised
a really fine young man. And essentially that is the
story of my life. Norm got his degree in economics
(21:40):
and worked as a data systems analyst, first at General
Dynamics and then until retirement on gas turbine engines at
Solar International. He lives in Spokane, Washington, and speak so
lovingly of his wife and family that I encourage you
to hear more of his story in our episode All's
Fair in War and Lasting Love. You can also find
(22:01):
more about Norman at his page at service podcast dot
org and an extra clip of his near runnin with
a German submarine at our Instagram and Facebook We're at
Service Podcast. In our next episode, sister Melanie campbec shares
her childhood as a Croatian immigrant, how hard she worked
to put herself through nursing school, her experience as an
(22:22):
army nurse, and her entry into the convent until then.
Service as a production from My Heart Radio and Main
jacquelban Proposo, with Steve Jackson as our on site engineer
and Spokane Gabrielle Collins as our supervising producer and Christopher
Hasiotis as our executive producer. Thank you to Norm's son
Rick for helping coordinate some details for this episode, Brett
(22:43):
Bowers at The Man Grind, Staff via Medical Center and
Spokane for connecting us with Norm, and writer Cindy Evolve
for connecting us with Brett. Cindy's book War Bonds is
a beautiful collection of Greatest generation love stories. You can
find more details at our website. There, you can also
send a message to any of the veterans you're hearing
from this season. Thank you for listening, and thank you
(23:04):
to those serving and those who have served. M h
m hm
This episode re enacts scenes of war and includes gunfire.
Listener discretion advised, you're tuning into service Johnny Strict private
first class veteran stories of hunger and war. They joined
the service. Remember Pearl Harbor. Remember Pearl Harbor, a production
(00:21):
from I Heart Radio. We used to just give these
people the food from our biscuits. You ain't what you
could get, and be thankful well what you were getting.
I'm your host, Jacqueline Reposo, what sets a World War?
(00:43):
To Marina. Part of the over sixteen million men who
would come to fight for the United States in World
War Two, only six hundred and sixty thousand of them
were Marines. That six hundred and sixty thousand compared to
over four million in the Navy or eleven million in
the Army. Norman Ruben was one marine among them. Born
(01:07):
in nineteen nineteen, Norm was only ten when the stock
market crash plunged the country into the Great Depression, leaving
many jobless and hungry and standing in the breadlines we've
talked about in episodes past. By seven, another recession had
curbed any progress starting to be made, and so many
young men tried to enlist just to get fed. Norm
(01:30):
was lucky. He got in Norm was unlucky. In seven
we still didn't see a world war coming. And so
now from his home in Spokane, Washington, let's slow and
sit and spend some time with one hundred year old
(01:50):
Norman Reuben. My name is Norman Reuben. I was born
in Philadelphia in nineteen nineteen. My father was a fine
(02:12):
furrier that came over from Russia, and my mother came
from Russia also. We lived in the Russian neighborhood and
talked Russian. At eight Russian she went up to Seventh
Street where all of the push carts were. She would
(02:32):
go to see what they were selling. At whatever they
were selling, she bought everything you could eat. They sold fruit, vegetables, meat, fish,
everything right out of their push carts. Owned by people
from all over Philadelphia. They would open on a Thursday
(02:57):
and close out on a Sunday. Everybody in South Philadelphia
was worn those streets at that time, and they were
by and she made a meal out of it. That
was it, and you ate it no matter what it was.
(03:26):
When I was ten years old, my father left my mother.
I was about sixteen years old, right in the middle
of the depression, going to Overbrook High School, trying to
get a job so I could help my mom. I
had two brothers. My oldest brother was living with us
(03:51):
working as a drug store attendant, and my brother Jack
helped him. That helped everything. But we had a closet,
and we had an encyclopedia, and I've read all about
the Pacific. That was excited about that. The papers sometimes
(04:12):
advertised the marines down in South America, and I had
never been to South America as a kid, and that
sounded like it would be a good idea. Get away
from the family, make money, have clothing. That was one
less mouth to feed. That helped make me go to
(04:33):
the Marine Corps recruiting station. You had to be eighteen
to join the Marine Corps. He asked when I was born,
which it was October first, nineteen nineteen, but I told
him nineteen eighteen. Because there was seventeen thousand, three hundred
(04:57):
marines all over the world, they were taken ten marines
of months. At that stage of the game, they sent
a man around to talk to my mother. She played
the game with me. We lost my birth certificate. Well
that was a lie to begin with, and so consequently
(05:19):
they hired me in at eighteen years of age. They
bade the arrangements for me to get a train to
Parish Island, South Carolina. Ten future Marines walked down to
a boat landing, got on the boat, told where to sit.
(05:43):
Shut up. They rode on that river up to the
base where there were steps that looked like there were
three stories high. We had to walk up the steps
and stop at the first story, then the second story,
and then the third story. That's where the mess hall was.
(06:06):
We sat down and they brought us food. They just
bought plates of food. We ate until there was no
food left. Corned beef, roast beef. The rest was potatoes
and vegetables. They were never going to get rid of us.
I'll tell you. We ate until we were sick. Almost
(06:30):
of the ten of us, eight were sent home. Two
of us went to Platoon one. We were sent down
to where the supply room was where they issued uniforms.
I was a senior in high school. I went to
the Marine Corps and Parasi Island fed me and clothed me,
(06:51):
and they fed me pretty good. They had a man
for life. That was in Jabuay. Seven. They transferred me
to Philadelphia. They were just building the new cruisers, the Philadelphia,
(07:13):
the Brooklyn, the Savannah. I was assigned to the U.
S S. Philadelphia. I put her in commission. I never
missed a meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Where they did
the cooking was up on the top deck. The second
(07:35):
deck down is where you sat. You had benches that
fit up on the ceiling, and you had to clean
all that up and put those benches up before they
would turn you loose. The Marines provided two men for
the benches, and they just kept bringing food to your
(07:56):
table in bowls, and whoever emptied a bowl lest had
the bowl up in his hand yelling orderly, and you
had all you could eat everything that they could make.
I ate any kind of food. They would always have
met Friday evening they had hamburgers. Saturday mornings they had
(08:20):
hot dogs, and everything was eaten, nothing taken back, no garbage.
Because it was the middle of the depression, a lot
of our boys were fresh out of college. Course, the
family couldn't keep them in college, so they joined the Marines.
And it was wonderful aboard the Philadelphia because the Philadelphia
(08:44):
carried the flag and that was where the admiral was
the admiral was in his stateroom on the port side,
the captains was on the starboard side, and each one
had their own cooks. In October of nineteen fifteen, African
(09:10):
American sailors stationed on the USS Philadelphia sent a letter
to the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier detailing their work
as chambermaids and dishwashers, making beds and shining shoes, noting
the unequal pay they were given compared to white sailors
with less training or experience, how they didn't sit at
tables to eat but had to make do standing, how
(09:30):
their rations were sometimes meager so to pad the officers meals.
This is not something we've not heard from our veterans.
This season, my brother and two of his friends joined
the Navy. My father was upset because of Afro American background.
The Navy on accept them as mess attendants. They had
black sailers under roadan ammunition and Lodan ammunition and blew
(09:55):
whelp and killed over a hundred of them. From that
day on, Black sailers didn't, Lauren do that kind of work.
You can't blame them. And so let's consider the political
theory of divide and rule here, or divide and conquer,
as used in military strategy. How do oligarchs maintain power
or extreme wealth. They pit struggling oppressed groups against each
(10:18):
other so that they blame each other and fight for
what little they can get. And so, while we should
respect that all of this season's veterans were hungry and
desperate for work before World War Two, let's also hold
that African Americans suffered unemployment rates double the national average
during the Great Depression, and that upon publication of their letter,
(10:39):
the fifteen Black Sailors were dishonorably discharged from the Navy.
We'll be right back, ye, Welcome back to service veteran
(11:07):
stories of hunger and war from my Heart Radio. I'm
Jacqueline propos O. Norm spent two years aboard the Philadelphia,
largely in the Caribbean, and then, as we're about to hear,
found himself stationed in Iceland, which was a sovereign kingdom
in personal union with Denmark, both staunchly neutral countries at
this point in the war. But then Germany invaded Denmark
(11:31):
in April of nine, and so Britain invaded Iceland the
following month, facing almost no resistance from the minuscule Icelandic
military and eventually bringing in troops from Canada to defend
the vital Port Island. As we were still technically neutral
as well, Roosevelt waited for a proper invitation from the
Icelandic government before sending marines over to protect the Icelanders
(11:54):
and British troops there. But as we well know by now,
on December seven, everything would change, and that would especially
be so for those already in the marines. My job
(12:18):
was gun striker of gun number one on the bridge
of the starboard side. There were four guns on the
starboard side, four guns on the port side. That was
the Navy's job port side. On the starboard side that
we'd had gun number one and the machine guns up
(12:41):
on the top of the bridge with the twenty millimeters
which was a new gun at that time, to guard
the ship. I tried being a good marine and they
made me the captain's orderly. My job was to stand
in front of his cabin's door announcing the executive officer's
(13:03):
request for permission to see the captain stop anybody from
trying to get in or get out. So that's what
our job was in the navy, to be the captain's orderlies,
the admiral's orderlies, the president's orderlies. The President got on
(13:26):
the ship in the navy yard in South Carolina, and
I was assigned as the President's orderly except when we
met with Churchill in the South Atlanta. He was on
the h M S Hood. I was assigned to the
barge that picked up Churchill from HMS Hood. They had
(13:51):
a meeting for two and a half hours and we
stood at attention outside their cabin, after which we sent
church Chilled back to his small boat back to the
Philadelphia and the way we went that was. At that
(14:11):
time the war was on in Europe. The Germans have
been bombing London, so the Marines were providing food and ammunition.
So I couldn't get out of the Marine Corps because
they locked everybody up that were in the Marine Corps.
I'm almost twenty years old sitting with the first Marine
(14:35):
Brigade in Iceland protecting an army unit that came out
of Europe and was attacked by the Germans in France.
The Germans sent planes over and you could see them
flicking their cameras taking pictures of our positions. We were
(15:01):
up there when Pearl Harbor was attacked. I was sent
(15:39):
to the eleventh Marines, an artillery unit attached to the
first Marine Division on Guadalcanal that went to Tinyan, Si Pan, Bougainville,
and so forth. The Marines assaulted the islands and took
them back from a Pan. I was a master gun
(16:03):
resurgeant then in charge of getting everybody ready to go
to war, keep them loaded with ourtillery and also small
gun fire and other things. We had hundred and five
millimeter guns. In addition to that, we had one fifty
(16:25):
five millimeter tanks guns that can shoot twenty five miles.
The artillery is called in by the infantry, and as
a master gun resergeant, I was told by our officers
what we were shooting, and how we were shooting, and
(16:48):
where we are shooting, and when we are shooting, what
coordinates to get who was on the coordinate. The infantry
of the Marines. You don't want to hit them, you
want to get of them. So with them. There are
artillery observers on the front lines listening to the captains
(17:13):
in charge of his infantry people. When he's told to move,
he tells the artillery, we're moving and you're to cover
US as far north to coordinate, so and so they
know exactly where they're gonna hit. What I really remember,
(17:42):
I was sitting on Guam getting ready to go into Japan.
The US Navy went into the Sea of Japan and
fired upon the Japanese Navy anchored within or most area.
(18:05):
We were all prepared a board ship for landing near Yokohama.
We heard the General in charge of the Marines requiring
the General of the Japanese Army is surrender. We were
excited to think that he was demanding the surrender of
(18:28):
Japan because we knew that the Japanese army was different.
Wherever the Japanese went. The Japanese dug in and everything,
My fellow Americans, the thoughts and hopes of all America,
(18:50):
indeed of all the civilized world, our center tonight on
the battleship Missouri. There on that small piece of American
style anchored in Tokyo Harbor. The Japanese have just officially
laid down their arms. They have signed terms of unconditional surrender.
(19:14):
When it happened, all I could think of, could I
get a phone call to my wife, Marjorie. She had
put up with me through the war. She was a beautiful, wonderful,
full blooded nurse from the Women's Hospital Philadelphia. She was
(19:38):
just one marine's wife. I'll tell you it was just
ecstatic for me to be able to talk to her,
and I did on a Sunday afternoon in Guam, and
they had to pull the full away from my ear
(20:05):
Norman and Marjorie had gotten married in January of nineteen
forty one, and he says, more than any food he
missed during the war, he missed Marjorie. He didn't receive
any packages overseas because the first Marine Battalion were taking
and retaking these Pacific islands and many didn't have message
center set up. You had to bully a hook or
(20:26):
a crook one of the other to get it done.
Norm state of the Marines through the Korean War and
the Cold War, deciding to retire in the summer of
nineteen fifty nine. I'd retired as a major because Marjorie
and I had a son, and it just seemed like
(20:46):
Marjorie had had enough of the Marine Corps. Because if
you're a marine, you're a marine. That's it. You're not
a part marine, you're a whole marine. And you're just
made to go to war. And I asked more agree
if she would put up with me going to San
Diego State, and she said absolutely, and so that's what
(21:08):
we did. The Marine Corps was my greatest thing I
ever did, beside Mary and the most beautiful lady in
the world. And she was a beautiful mother that raised
a really fine young man. And essentially that is the
story of my life. Norm got his degree in economics
(21:40):
and worked as a data systems analyst, first at General
Dynamics and then until retirement on gas turbine engines at
Solar International. He lives in Spokane, Washington, and speak so
lovingly of his wife and family that I encourage you
to hear more of his story in our episode All's
Fair in War and Lasting Love. You can also find
(22:01):
more about Norman at his page at service podcast dot
org and an extra clip of his near runnin with
a German submarine at our Instagram and Facebook We're at
Service Podcast. In our next episode, sister Melanie campbec shares
her childhood as a Croatian immigrant, how hard she worked
to put herself through nursing school, her experience as an
(22:22):
army nurse, and her entry into the convent until then.
Service as a production from My Heart Radio and Main
jacquelban Proposo, with Steve Jackson as our on site engineer
and Spokane Gabrielle Collins as our supervising producer and Christopher
Hasiotis as our executive producer. Thank you to Norm's son
Rick for helping coordinate some details for this episode, Brett
(22:43):
Bowers at The Man Grind, Staff via Medical Center and
Spokane for connecting us with Norm, and writer Cindy Evolve
for connecting us with Brett. Cindy's book War Bonds is
a beautiful collection of Greatest generation love stories. You can
find more details at our website. There, you can also
send a message to any of the veterans you're hearing
from this season. Thank you for listening, and thank you
(23:04):
to those serving and those who have served. M h
m hm
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