Tell Me A Story: 2013 Journey to Christmas: THE DISCIPLES, PART 2: THE BOOT

Marcia Norwood
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

2013 JOURNEY TO CHRISTMAS:

THE DISCIPLES, Part 2: THE BOOT

Mature Content - Not Appropriate for Children

Twenty-four teenage girls from farms across America, were recruited for a special elite team for the United States Army in 1939, by secret service agents. They left their families for boot camp in Colorado, and trained at various places throughout the United States.

The elite team was summoned to the White House in 1941. They were surprised to be escorted into the Oval Office to meet the 32nd President of the United States, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

President Roosevelt told them: "Something is going to happen. I don't know what yet. I need you ladies to go to Japan. The general will fill you in later on the rest. I want to thank you for your service. This cannot be spoken. Word cannot get out that you exist."

LISA (Alpha Team Leader): "President Roosevelt spoke to us for only a short time. He gave each of us an American flag pin. We pinned it on the dresses we wore. We were led into the White House Dining Room. The President told his chef to make us whatever we wanted. I wanted a nice big steak."

"A general briefed us on our stories. I think it was General Douglas MacArthur. He gave each of us folders, and told us to memorize what was in the folders while we ate. Three days later we were on a plane to Japan. Our cover was that we came from Harvard University (twenty-four female foreign exchange students) to study botany in the hills of Japan. We served four months in Japan before the attack on Pearl Harbor."

From Left: Kelly, Emily, Hannah and Morgan. In train: Christy, Beth, Elisabeth. Germany 1942. Copyright Lisa D.

Their second assignment was in Hawaii. They landed at Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack. This time they posed as nurses at the hospital a couple of miles from the point of attack. Twelve of those young women, members of Charlie and Delta teams, gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country at Pearl Harbor. (Read Part 1 of their story on the previous blog for details.)

The women of Alpha and Bravo teams served at Pearl Harbor for three weeks. They left the same way they came in. They paddled life rafts out to a fishing boat. The only thing different was that Christmas Eve they climbed a ladder into two helicopters.

The remaining twelve (members of Alpha and Bravo teams) known as The Disciples, and The Snipers, left Hawaii on Christmas Eve, 1941.

"There's a case on the floor between your feet," said one of the pilots on the helicopter. "Open it, ladies. You deserve it."

LISA: "Each helicopter had two huge crates filled with food and drinks. There was lots of bread, beer, sliced ham and turkey, water, milk, chips, fruit, vegetables and chocolate. Chocolate! We sure missed chocolate!"

"Before we ate, we radioed the other helicopter. We heard the girls yelling over the radio. We all decided to throw some food out of the helicopter - out of respect for our fallen comrades. I know they didn't get it. We did it as an act of respect."

Four teams: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta were now down to two teams with six women in each team.

The Disciples: American Heroes

Alpha Team:

Lisa (17) from California

Louisa (18) from Iowa

Morgan (17) from Iowa

Hannah (18) from Washington state

Jordan (16) from Texas

Emily (16 1/2) from California

Bravo Team:

Elisabeth (18) from Florida

Jacquelyn (17) from New Jersey

Beth (16) from Nebraska

Bede (16) from Florida

Christy (17) from New York

Kelly (18 1/2) from New York.

LISA: "Early Christmas morning, about 2 AM on December 25, 1941, the helicopters landed on an island the pilots called THE BOOT. There were four pilots (two for each helicopter) and twelve of us girls. To this day, we don't know exactly where in the world that island is located."

Christmas Day 1941, after the helicopters were unloaded, The Disciples ate, drank and told stories as they sat around a fire made by the natives on a tropical island the pilots called THE BOOT.

LISA: "We were probably in shock. None of us wanted to speak of the horrors we saw. It was like what we saw happened to someone else, but we knew it happened to us. First we were twenty-four, and now we were 12. We trained to adapt to any situation. Cold. Hot. Deserts. We trained hard. Nothing prepared us."

"If you thought too much about it... eventually it would drive you crazy. We knew these girls and their stories. You thought about the last thing they said to you. You thought about their parents. We couldn't do something about their deaths - so drinking Saki seemed to work. You didn't reflect upon it then. You just survived."

"We got drunk out of our brains...except for Jacquelyn. The pilots paid four pennies each for us to go to a steam house, a massage parlor that the locals made. It was inside a cabana. We went in with clothes on an everything."

LOUISA: "Lisa kept yelling: 'Turn up the heat. Turn up the heat.' We were sweating and talking nonsense. We drank more beer. It was hot beer now. I don't know what we were eating. At first we thought we must have hallucinated."

Lisa said: "Is that a baby monkey in here with us?"

LOUISA: "We ate bananas, and fed some to the monkey. The four pilots came and went from the cabana. They ate and drank and smoked right along with us. All the girls, except for Emily were inside the cabana. She shacked up with one pilot."

EMILY: "It was my first time. The monkeys watched us. It was both our ideas together. George was one of the pilots. We married after the war, in 1945. Poor George. He died in 2011. We met, and he went out the same way...doing something he loved. Sex."

JACQUELYN: "The pilots and the monkeys were coming and going inside the cabana. The locals smoked something and blew it inside the tent. I snuck out of the tent, and went to the town. I ate everything I possibly could that looked good. I'm Italian. I looked for pasta , spaghetti and meat balls. I got something to eat, but I prefer not to know what I ate."

EMILY: "George asked me to marry him there on the island. I didn't want to get married on THE BOOT. I wanted a big wedding. I asked George for a condom. It was called a rubber back then. Doctors used to cut off a part of a glove and use it as a rubber, so a girl didn't get pregnant. We didn't have a rubber - so we stopped before he came. George asked if I still wanted to do it. I did. We were in the forest by these two coconut trees when Jacquelyn walked up to us. We were naked. She came up right by us. She had something hanging out of her mouth that she was eating. She looked like that most of the time."

JACQUELYN: "What are you doing, Emily?"

EMILY: "Honey, it's called sex. You're getting food upon me."

JACQUELYN: "Do you want some?"

EMILY: "I wouldn't normally eat something that looks like my mother's eyebrow, or something that looked like my shit either."

Hesitantly, Emily grabbed a piece and ate it.

EMILY: "It was good. It made my tongue tingly, and it made me hot in certain areas."

JACQUELYN: "Lisa and the rest are still in the cabana, smoking it out. We've got to get them out."

The four pilots and Jacquelyn and Emily dragged them out, and sobered them up.

Lisa continued to yell: "Turn the heat up."

JACQUELYN: "Christmas morning, we drug them out of the cabana, and laid them on the beach...all in a row. We dumped water from the ocean on them. That didn't fully wake them up. They pretended to be mermaids. They put their legs together and moved around like beached mermaids...beached whales. One of the pilots brought Saki, a Japanese fermented, strong drink made from rice. They drank Saki, and got in their right mind."

EMILY: "Saki Detox. Then they vomited. The locals came at lunch time on Christmas Day, 1941. I don't know why they liked us. They brought in this big meat thing. It looked good. We didn't care what it was. The locals started a big fire and roasted something. A stick ran from head to butt in the animal. One stick, and two people turn the animal as it roasted. The local women wore bikini bras...more like a cloth over their boobs, and a cloth on their privates. Both men and women had lots of piercings: ears, nose, and nipples. One guy was pierced between his eyebrows."

JACQUELYN: "We ate a green plant that looked like green beans, but it wasn't. It was fuzzy.

LISA: "We were in the moment. That was 72 years ago this Christmas. Back then we thought Pearl Harbor was an isolated incident. We hadn't heard of Hitler yet. We drank something the locals gave to us, and ate some weird meat. We sat around the fire and ate, and drank, and told stories about Christmases we celebrated back home on our farms."

JACQUELYN: "We raised rabbits on our land in New Jersey. I lost count of how many. I ate some of them, like I do with everything. Momma had a hot temper. She put the tree up every Christmas Eve. Daddy put the star up on top. Momma re-did it because Daddy never did it right. It happened every Christmas Eve. Momma cooked three kinds of spaghetti, and we always had a meatball contest. My grandmother, Zoylea, won every year. It was her recipe."

LISA: "We had silkworms on two acres in California. During Christmastime, my folks and I went to town. We asked neighbors and venders (merchants) if we could help them. I always dusted and then swept the floor of the feeding/grain store. They gave me a bag of grain. Momma helped tailor things at the sewing store. They gave her extra needles, fabric, or dresses that someone didn't want. Dad went to the hardware store. People brought in their guns, and Daddy fixed their guns. In return, Daddy got things he needed in payment. Momma nd I helped every year at the bakery. It was our favorite thing. The bakery always over-baked. After the big rush, we got the overflow: apple, cherry, strawberry, blueberry mini-pies; sweet rolls, and homemade loafs with honey. Momma put chocolate on the rolls. The bakery also gave us left over ham. We even got extra bags of things for the horses."

EMILY: "I heard about three of their stories, and got bored. I got itchy in my panties. George and I left, and went back to the two coconut trees. Jacquelyn stuck some meat in my pocket. She could always find me, because she smelled the meat. She even bit me once. She thought I was a giant piece of turkey leg. I smacked her like a dog, and she finally snapped out of it."

LOUISA: "Back home in Iowa, whether we had a good Christmas depended on Dad's crops. My great-grandpa was a flower salesman. He sold tulips. Great-grandpa migrated from Holland before I was born. I remember my grandpa always brought tulips. Grandma made things for us like gloves or a hat or scarf. One year she made a doll for me out of fabric. She made my doll a really cute matching doll an scarf."

"Grandpa always brought flowers. He said: 'I believe Christmas is about family.' In honor of my great-grandfather - my grandfather always brought tulips. "

"Dad always shot a turkey from my Uncle Ben's farm. It was just down the road from our farm. Dad and Ben were two out of eleven children that survived. Uncle Ben had the biggest turkeys on his land. Mom said it was a sin to eat a pig. We never had ham. Grandpa wanted ham. There was always a debate: 'Why not ham?' "

"We sang old Christmas songs, and drank beer during the holidays to celebrate with family. We made up an Irish song and in part of it we sang, 'Hurrah!' "

JACQUELYN: "I sniffed out Emily, and found her clothes and shoes. She wasn't wearing them. We tied Emily's shirt and shoes to a stick. We called it The Tree. We suffered for it later. Emily was busy making whoopie. She was never ashamed of her body. She pranced around in the sand in pure nakedness - even where the locals were."

EMILY: "I thought the monkeys stole my clothes."

JACQUELYN: "She was kinda drink."

LISA: "She did not get her clothes off the tree until we got on the plane to leave the island. Then we made her wear her bra and pants. The original four pilots stayed with us. The pilots called us 'YOU' - except they remembered Emily's name very well."

EMILY: "About the pilots: George wasn't my first that day, but he was my last. George was the best. He didn't care that I slept with the other three pilots. He said: 'You're hot. And if I refuse you - your might shoot me.' We were snipers."

LISA: "The pilots remembered Jacquelyn's name, too. Jacquelyn always appeared at the worst moments. I was in the forest vomiting and pooping at the same time. Here comes Jacquelyn with something that looks like poo hanging out of her mouth. It wasn't poo - but it looked like it."

JACQUELYN: "How does it feel, Lisa, coming from both ends?"

LISA: "Not well. How can you eat?"

They tried to laugh. They were probably in shock. They didn't speak of the horrors they saw. First they were twenty-four, and now they were twelve. They tried to survive. They sat around the fire and ate ,and drank, and told stories about Christmases they celebrated back home on their farms.

CHRISTY: " We lived in northern New York on nine or ten acres We raised birds , like parrots. We started with two birds and they reproduced. Daddy made cages, too. Christmas Eve, my parents and I drove to the big part of New York to see the Statue of Liberty. We stood on the shore. It was the ultimate symbol of freedom. Christmas Eve we picked up cookies for Santa at Georgino's Bakery, near the pier. Four dozen cookies cost us ten cents. We strolled down the streets of New York and looked in the beautiful store windows. We always dressed up in our best attire. For one moment - no one guessed we were farm people."

HANNAH: "We raised miniature goats in Washington state. Those goats wouldn't shut up. Momma got mad, and threw her shoe at them. They ate her shoe. Momma's family came together at Christmas. Everyone brought something. That's the rule. We all ate, and my two brothers wrestled each other. After we ate, Dad always sang, 'I Saw Three Ships.' We knew when he was done singing, it was time to open presents. We either bought presents with our own money, or found something at home to give, or we made it. Each year it was a surprise."

"My brothers' favorite gift was to give poop in a can. It was their own poop that fermented in a Mason jar with a lid. They used to dump out Momma's green beans, poop in the jar, and give it to me. I got two jars of poop every Christmas, plus other things, thank God."

"After everything funny, Dad read the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke from the Bible. Mom stopped him there. One Christmas, my grandma had a new pair of dentures. She accidentally dropped them in the lemonade. Someone (probably my brothers) scooped them up and put them in the eggnog. Dad loved eggnog. He felt something bite his lip as he drank a glass of eggnog."

"Grandma grabbed her dentures out of Dad's eggnog, and put them back in her mouth. That's when Dad first had the idea to make something that would keep dentures in grandma's mouth. Grandmother's dentures fell out plenty of other times. Dad kept working on his idea. Years later, after the war, Dad perfected his idea of a denture adhesive. He was the co-founder of Sea- Bond."

MORGAN: " The big tropical flowers on THE BOOT reminded me of the flowers at home. My family lived in Iowa on a tulip plantation. Every year we sold about two million tulips bulbs. The Christmas holidays were really busy. We took off Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so my folks could go to all the graves of the deceased people in our family. They planted tulip bulbs every Christmas Eve in different designs on the graves. Momma created the designs on paper, and had it all planned out. My uncle made an American flag design. It took him all day to plant it."

"There were so many of us. I had four brothers and seven sisters. I was the oldest. Daddy had a friend who owned a toy store in Omaha, Nebraska. Christmas Day we drove to Omaha. Mamma took a vehicle she called, 'The Bus.' Daddy's friend opened the toy store for us. Each one of us picked out one toy we wanted. Later on we figured out Daddy gave him free tulips: 200 free tulips with his order."

JORDAN: "We raised Texas Longhorn cows. We had the Texas Farmer's Pageant at our local church, The JOY church in western Texas. I groomed my black and white, Palomino pony, Spot, for judging. The rules stated you could only use animals that could have been in the Nativity. We all groomed them and made them look pretty. Each person built a Nativity. One was made out of cheese. There could only be one animal in each nativity - a real animal. My Nativity was made out of lumber. My older brother, a lumberjack, built it. It was the biggest. You know - everything is big in Texas."

"We had to build it, and then take it apart and then re-assemble it. We took my Nativity and my pony, Spot, to Dallas for judging. The winner got to display their Nativity at the mayor's house in Dallas."

"My beautiful Spot and I won eight years in a row, ever since I was 8 years old. I took Spot, and my Nativity to the front lawn of the Mayor of Dallas. That was my tradition. Everyone who drove by saw my pony. We took down my Nativity about 5 PM, and drove home. We lived about one hour from Dallas. We opened present at home."

"My dad memorized the Christmas Story from the Bible. He recited the Christmas Story and said the blessing. We ate about 8 PM in the evening."

"My grandmother was rich. We didn't go without anything because of my grandmother. She bought Spot for me for my 5th birthday. She bought a house for Dad for his 25th birthday. Grandma was very generous."

LISA: "We traveled together in 1939, to meet all the recruits. We met Jordan - in what seemed like the middle of nowhere - in a God-forsaken, HOT country. We had our best dresses on. We pulled up to this HUGE house."

Jacquelyn said then: "It's the White House!"

LISA: "Obviously it wasn't the White House, but we thought Jordan was a rich girl because the house was ridiculously huge. Jordan's grandmother offered to buy us new clothes. She said we looked bad."

Jordan's grandmother said: "If you're going to go to war, you might as well go fashionably."

LISA: "We went shopping for fancy dresses. We were training for war, but we would show the foreigners how well we looked. We were sure Jordan was a rich girl."

ELISABETH: "We were chicken farmers in Florida. We sold eggs and chickens. Chickens are like rabbits. They keep on reproducing. We had over 800 chickens in chicken coups in the middle of Florida. We were close enough to the ocean to surf. It was pretty hot in Florida, and each Christmas Eve we had a surfing competition. Normally I won, because I'm the lightest. Even my grandmother surfed when she was 60-something. Grandma refused to wear a wet suit. They were made out of cloth back then, and more like a dress only a little tighter on you. We had to be modest. Grandma wore a wet suit underneath, and a regular dress on top to surf. We told her it was crazy."

That Christmas (1941) on THE BOOT, the girls made fun of my grandmother for wearing a dress when she surfed. They tried to stand on a log with a dress and act like her. I defended grandmother, and told them at least my grandma could surf, and they couldn't. There is nothing better than the smell of the ocean. It fills your lungs and you breathe it out. THE BOOT reminded me of Florida. None of us could surf on the ocean around the island, because we drank too much. We had never drank before...except for Emily. As much as Jacquelyn liked food - she never drank. She ate weird things on that God-forsaken island."

BETH: "It rained all the time in Nebraska. We never had to water our crops. We grew corn by the way. We were Cornhuskers...way before Cornhuskers were the mascot for the University of Nebraska. We were called Cornhuskers because we husked corn for rich people. During Christmastime we ate a lot of corn. Grandmother always fixed something different made from corn. One year she made a corn pancake with corn and nothing else. It was not my favorite. She boiled corn and added sugar and then smooshed it together to make a corn drink. It was better than it sounds. Some of grandma's concoctions were better than others."

"Christmas Day my friend, "T" came over. He had spina bifida, a birth defect, and couldn't walk. T's daddy built him a wheelchair. "T" and his daddy always came to our house on Christmas Day. They brought more corn - not that we needed any. We played games. Momma made up a game where you sit in a circle blindfolded. Everyone is blindfolded except for one. Momma was never blindfolded. She hid things around the house. One of them was a golden star. You won the game if you found it. The rest of the hidden things were penalties. It was a so much fun to play. Hilarious. We named Momma's game, Find the Golden Star."

"The girls and I played Find the Golden Star on THE BOOT. Jacquelyn found a starfish that she was going to cook and eat. We took the starfish as our golden star. I don't remember if it was alive or dead. For once, I was not going to be blindfolded. I hid the starfish no more than 20 feet outside the fire in the sand. We had the smart idea to shred Emily's shirt as blindfolds."

"Jacquelyn won because she was the only one not drunk. That - and she put a weird smell (from her food) on the bottom of the starfish. She sniffed it out. We swore Jacquelyn was part greyhound. Jacquelyn is a short Italian, and part dog. (Jacquelyn's momma said Jacquelyn could sniff out her nipple when she was two months old from five miles away.) I blindfolded everybody for the game, but Jacquelyn was the only one on the ground on all fours. I saw her. The other girls bumped into trees, fell over logs, and tripped over each other. Jacquelyn found the starfish within ten minutes. Emily came back and saw pieces of her shirt on their faces as blindfolds."

BEDE: "My momma and Daddy were glass makers. We also raised milking cows on a farm in Florida. We had four milking cows, and sold their milk. It didn't make enough money, so we were glass blowers. My parents made glass beads. That's how they got my name, Bede. When I was born they said I had brown, beady eyes, so they called me Bede. Momma and daddy couldn't spell very well. They spelled it the way it sounded...B E D E.

"The first time I met the girls, they made fun of my name, and took turns laughing at me. I had some of the finest jewelry, and they laughed at me."

"Christmas on THE BOOT, I told how busy my family was at Christmastime. Glass-blown beads and other glass items were really becoming popular. Rich people ordered from us. We made glass beads, necklaces, bracelets, bowls, vases - lots of things out of glass. We had about 15 new orders each day during the Christmas season. Everybody in our family pitched in. I learned the glass blowing trade."

"I had four brothers and two sisters. I was the middle child, but I was the smallest. My brothers used to play a game on Christmas Eve that they called, KIDNAP BEDE. I really didn't like that game. It went something like this: 1) Get a hay-sack, and put Bede in it while she's sleeping. 2) Dump Bede in the middle of nowhere. 3) Watch Bede find her way home on Christmas Eve."

"Luckily I found my way home on Christmas Day. It sucked. Sometimes my brothers put me up in a tree. When I finally got off the hay-sack - I would be up in a tree. My family had a sick sense of humor."

Momma would say: "Boys, did you hide Bede again?"

"I got so made because Daddy wouldn't say anything about it. He laughed. I used to get back at my brothers. Momma put all the food on our plates, and I switched out a good piece of meat with a bad piece of meat on their plates. Or - I would add hot peppers in their mashed potatoes, or dump out their milk and put something else in it - like pig lard. I fought back. One Christmas I fell out of a tree and broke my arm."

LISA: "We all were taught to climb trees."

KELLY: "We lived south of New York City. We had ducks and one pond on our land. My family sold ducks for meat and bait, and whatever else you wanted to do with ducks. Grandmother gave me a duck for my birthday."

"Normally around Christmas - I always got sick. The year before I left for training in 1939, my sister (three years older than me) pierced my ears with a needle and thread. She did it while I was sleeping. I woke up as she tried to pierce the first one. My sister didn't wash the needle or sterilize it with fire. This is how it happened. My sister wondered how it looked to have pierced ears. Before she did it to herself, she decided to try it out on me. Momma and Daddy were away. The day before Christmas Eve I got tired and took a nap. I woke up and hopped up immediately with the needle half way through my ear. It started bleeding. Sister said I didn't want to look bad - so she had to pierce the other. Regrettably, I let her. The second one hurt more - much more. I wondered if it was supposed to thus this bad. Christmas Eve rolled around and my ear was beaming RED, and hot to the touch. Momma noticed and aske what happened. I told her Sister pierced my ears."

"Any holes you get are from the devil, unless they are the holes God made on you," Momma said.

"Momma was religious."

"Baby, I think God is punishing you," Momma said. "Your ears look like they are on fire."

"Momma put ice on my ears. My friend, Noel, came over on Christmas Eve. Noel was outspoken. She had no processor, and she said whatever she thought. Noel saw my red ears - thought it was a hair - and pulled the strings out of both ears at the same time. I cried. I cursed. I laughed, and then I vomited. All in that order. That was the Christmas Eve before I left for the Army."

Noel told me later on: "Best friend, don't get shot in the ass, because I'm not putting ice on that."

"Noel always wanted to go to Las Vegas. She did it. She became a Las Vegas show girl."

LISA: "We were safe on THE BOOT that Christmas, as we told stories about home. We didn't care where we were going next. We were together. First they were twenty-four, and now they were twelve. We thought we were on the beginning of a long way home. All four pilots boarded a new plane with us. We didn't know where we were going until we landed.

JACQUELYN: "So where are we?"

One pilot said: "Ladies, you are back in Japan. We'll get you cleaned up, and ship you out."

2013 JOURNEY TO CHRISTMAS:

THE DISCIPLES, Part 2: THE BOOT

The Disciples are together again in 2013,

and they trust me to tell you their story.

Their story is not in the history books, yet.

All that changes today.

Come back often,

and invite a friend to hear more incredible stories

from The Disciples

as we JOURNEY TO CHRISTMAS.

Thanks for stopping by!

P.S.

Did you know Saki really is a good detox?

I'm going to try it!

Check it out.

CLICK on this link

or COPY & PASTE the link in your browser:
http://www.ehow.com/way_5747733_chinese-dark-circles-under-eyes.html

Marcia Norwood

America's STORYTELLER

Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

Tell Me A Story

TELL ME A STORY

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

2013 Journey to Christmas: THE DISCIPLES, PART 2: THE BOOT

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AMERICA'S STORYTELLER, Marcia Norwood