Musings of a Marine

At the time of her enrollment, Fremont hadn’t a clue what to expect, other than the recollection of stories her father had regaled her with detailing his experiences of serving in WWII.  Vividly remembering learning how to judiciously navigate her first obstacle course during boot camp at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina with her first bunkmate – a flashy, high-heeled, fur coat-donning debutante from New York City – Fremont recalls the camp’s unrelenting austerity and the colorful bruises her dainty shoulders sustained for weeks after shooting the formidable Browning Automatic Rifle.  The last of the U. S. military branches to open its ranks to willing women, Fremont recounts having to “play it cool” around her lower-ranked male counterparts, so as not to offend them with her higher-ranking Marines status and was often assumed to be a nurse.  When sent to Hawaii, she and her fellow female Marines were photographed playfully frolicking in the Pacific and bowling coconuts on the sandy, white beaches while scantily-clad in figure-flaunting swimsuits, “designed” as a PR campaign to attract more women to enlist.  However, it was pure PR propaganda.  Behind the “endlessly fun, light-hearted” shots depicted in recruitment ads for the Marines, Fremont spent her days entering data in mammoth IBM computers and driving Jeeps around the island for her generals.  While stationed at the Pentagon, her duties were relegated to writing up Missing-in-Action reports and Killed-in-Action presidential citations.  Fremont says her personal goal was to always learn the specific, individual details of the fallen heroes she wrote about, so she could incorporate these into these generalized form letters in the hopes of personalizing them for the bereaved families.