Maisie: WWII-era Marine Corps veteran

There are not a lot of women who can say they're Marine Corps veterans from World War II. Maisie Pugh can.

In July, 66 years after she left the Corps, Pugh participated in an "Honor Flight" trip to see the WWII memorial in Washington, D.C.

"Honor flight was designed to help every WWII veteran visit the monument in Washington," Pugh said. "It was a wonderful experience, and my grandson, David, escorted me. Most fabulous was seeing people saluting us at the airport. Military and sheriff's department folk. Fire trucks saluting with water. They could not have been more gracious, more kind."

Born in 1924 in Columbia, S.C., Pugh was raised around Fort Jackson, where her father, Louis Vernon, was a master sergeant.

"In 1937 he asked for the Philippines," she said, "but we ended up in Jacksonville, Fla. The good Lord was watching out for us."

After Pearl Harbor, she signed up for the Marine Corps when she turned 18.

"I liked the uniform better than the Army," she said. "I trained at Camp Lejeune [N.C.]. Our motto was to relieve a man to fight."

Pugh was assigned duty at the Parris Island Post Office in South Carolina.

"I signed up for Hawaii or California," she said. "I'd spent enough time in South Carolina. But of course they sent me to Parris Island.

"I was very young and I had a little problem with discipline," she said. "All these staff sergeants and master sergeants and warrant officers, and I was supposed to say, 'Yes sir; yes sir.' But I learned. I enjoyed being in the Marine Corps, but the only thing really military I had to do was to walk duty at night. I loved marching and singing songs, crawling over and under, that kind of stuff."

By the time the war was over, Pugh was a staff sergeant, married to George Pugh and expecting the first of four children.

"I met my husband, George — now there was a real Marine — in the Post Office," she said. "He served in Okinawa and Guadalcanal."

George and Maisie Pugh were married 60 years. He worked with the Post Office in Buford, S.C., where they raised their children. Later the couple lived in Germany, troubleshooting the military postal service; and in Greenville, S.C., where they still lived when they first retired.

"But we were both a little bored," Pugh said. "I inherited this desire to travel and was always ready to go. George took a job reassembling helicopters in Iran. We lived in Teheran just before the Shah was deposed. It was an interesting cultural experience. Germany was like stepping back 200 years; but this was like going back 1,000 years."

In the late 1980s the couple drove through Eufaula, Ala. They fell in love with the community.

"We lived there from 1987-2002," Pugh said. "I worked as a docent in historic homes. We had a wonderful time."

In 2005, after her husband died and Pugh spent a couple of years in Atlanta, she moved to Brandon. She attends St Andrew's United Methodist Church and enjoys being close to her daughter, Kitty.

What would Pugh, 87, say to young women contemplating the Marines today?

"It's a lot more dangerous for women now, but I say go for it," she said. "I'd recommend it for anyone if you go for the right reasons."