Olive drab underwear and vegetables to match. Those are the worst things Gladys Fredrickson remembers about her three years in the military.
She even wore olive drab pajamas when she slipped into her olive drab bunk, but it was a small price to pay to do her part, says the woman with the "star-spangled heart."
Sixty years have passed since Gladys left her job as a home economics teacher to join the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, but she still recalls every moment as though it happened last month.
Since the United States went to war in Iraq, Gladys, 85, has been digging out her own war letters and old photographs. Hoping to share a few of her World War II adventures, she joined me for a Free Lunch of raspberry chicken salad at her cozy Salt Lake ranch house, filled floor to ceiling with a lifetime of memories.
Besides the stacks of war books, one of the first things visitors notice in Gladys' living room is a large red and gold banner, covered with five white stars.
During WWII, almost every family had a similar flag in the window, says Gladys, an amiable woman with a generous smile and white wavy hair. "You had a star for each member of the family in the service," she says. "My family had five — me and four of my brothers."
The oldest of 10 children in Provo, Gladys shocked her family when she came home from her teaching job one day in 1943 and announced that she'd joined the WAC.
"My grandfather said, 'What? You joined that heathen outfit?' " she recalls with a laugh. "He couldn't believe it. But when I saw a recruiting poster, I just knew I had to do it. Women were needed to free the men up for combat duty. I wanted to help, however I could."
After two months in boot camp with about 1,000 other women, Gladys was stationed in Mississippi to write special orders. "I told soldiers where they were transferring and when they were going home," she says. "The best part about it was that I met people from all over the country."
As a clerk, she was paid $50 a month, "and when they promoted me to sergeant, I thought I was really living high," she recalls. "With $78 a month, I had enough to buy my family Christmas presents."
Doing without nylons, new shoes and stylish dresses was no problem for Gladys, since all she could wear around the clock was olive drab.
"No, they didn't give me Army boots," she says, "just sensible shoes. We always wore skirts, and to save material, President Roosevelt told us to wear them at knee length. And if you wanted bobby pins, you had to buy them on the black market."
Gladys is astonished when she hears people today complain about the price of gasoline going up a few cents a gallon.
"We're at war, but people don't have to do without, they're not living on rations," she says. "We were allowed three gallons of gas a week. Young people today have no idea what it is really like to sacrifice luxuries."
Now vice-commander of Salt Lake City's Women's Auxiliary of Disabled American Veterans, Gladys says she is still as patriotic as she was on her first day of boot camp. With a grandson in Iraq, she is tempted to put a single star in the window until he comes home.
"I doubt anybody would understand it, though, today," she says, gazing at a black-and-white snapshot of her and her four brothers, posing proudly in uniform. "Times are different, now.
"If the Army needed me, I don't think I'd be up to it," she adds, her eyes shining. "I already did my little part."
Have a story? Let's hear it over lunch. E-mail your name, phone number and what you'd like to talk about to freelunch@desnews.com. You can also write me at the Deseret News, P.O. Box 1257, Salt Lake City, UT 84110.