Oral History Highlight
Rites of Passage: Two Generations of the Eagle, Globe and Anchor

   
 
(From left) Marine Corps veteran Joyce (Hadley) Malone and her daughter Marine Corps GySgt Patricia D. Malone, Women's Memorial Foundation, November 2007. Women's Memorial Foundation photo. 		 

Earning the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor insignia is a rite of passage for every Marine, and Joyce (Hadley) Malone and Patricia D. Malone are proud to be among “The Few, The Proud” who have earned the privilege of wearing the US Marine Corps uniform.

The mother and daughter recorded their oral histories and shared what it means to each of them to have served their country during the Women In Military Service For America Memorial’s 10th Anniversary Celebration in November 2007.

How the Journey Began
The privilege of wearing the Marine Corps insignia is a journey that began for these mother-and-daughter Marines 50 years ago. In 1958, Joyce enlisted in the Marines, less than 10 years after the first African-American woman entered the Marine Corps. Enlistment was a decision that shaped her life, and the life of her daughter, said Joyce, a charter member of the Women's Memorial.

“It will always be a part of you, that Marine Corps spirit, esprit d’corps,” Joyce said during the pair’s oral history interview. “You always have it because once a Marine, always a Marine … What you get out of the Marine Corps is not given to you, you earn it [and, the] Eagle, Globe, and Anchor is not given to you, believe me.”

Marine Corps Pride
Joyce’s daughter, Marine Corps GySgt Patricia D. Malone, who has been serving since 1993, thought for a second and said, “Just to piggy back on what mother said, it’s definitely earned … You put that uniform on, you catch people looking at you out of the corner of their eye, ‘Oh, she’s a Marine; Oh, he’s a Marine.’  It’s just the way Marines carry themselves­—that pride that’s within.  They say that pain is weakness leaving the body, so pain has left the body but the pride and that esprit d’corps [are] left there.”

The Malones’ association with the Marine Corps began when then 21-year-old Joyce enlisted while a sophomore at Fayetteville Teachers College (now Fayetteville State University), in Fayetteville, NC.  She had been living with her sister, one of her 14 siblings, but when she was faced with the news that she would have to move on to campus, she visited the Marine Corps recruiter instead.

Looking Back 50 Years
Her recruiter took her to Raleigh, NC, for a physical exam, but because the United States was still largely segregated, there were no hotels where she could stay. She remembers that she stayed in a room of a private home.  Joyce arrived at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, SC, in March 1958. Her recruit class consisted of 50 women, four of which were minority women.  Joyce found basic training very hard but she remembers that all recruits were treated equally and subjected to the same training regimen.  “We all lived the same, on the same squad bay.  They [the drill instructors] did the same thing to me that they did [to everyone else].  They turned the footlockers over, they tore beds up; they did not give you any type of preferential treatment.” 

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PFC Joyce (Hadley) Malone's Woman Recruit Battalion, Platoon 4-A, MCRD Parris Island, SC, April 1958. Photo courtesy of Joyce Malone.

Life off the base was not quite as fair.  After graduating from Basic Training, she and two other Women Marines of Mexican descent, were dropped off at the train station to head to their first duty station in Washington, DC. When they decided to go to a restaurant to eat, they were stopped at the front door and PFC Malone was told that she could not eat there but that her friends could.  Her friends said, “’If she can’t eat in here, then we’re not going to eat in here,’” Joyce recalls. “All three of us left and we got machine crackers or something from the vending machine.”

Before leaving active duty in 1962, Joyce served as an administrative clerk at Marine Corps Headquarters, Washington, DC, and at Quantico Marine Base, Quantico, VA.  Once a civilian again, she returned to school to finish her education, earning a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a master’s degree in Education at Fayetteville State University.  Later, she served 12 years in the Army Reserve, earning her Parachute Wings by completing Jump School at Fort Benning, GA, at the age of 38, and serving one year as a drill sergeant.  She obtained the rank of staff sergeant and tied her military experience into a long career in government work and eventually retired from the civil service.

Like Mother, Like Daughter
Her daughter said that growing up with this remarkable mother as an example did have an impact on her own life decisions, “but she preached school first before anything.” Patricia took her mother’s advice and graduated from Winston Salem State University, Winston Salem, NC, in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in Physical Education before pursuing enlistment.  She worked as a substitute teacher and teacher’s assistant for a few years after graduation and had plans to join the Army Reserve and continue teaching.  An advertisement that she saw while watching the Super Bowl changed her plans.  The Marine Corps commercial featured a female Marine and Patricia remembers thinking, “I can do that! She looked sharp!” So, she found a recruiter and enlisted in the Marines in 1993.

Over the course of her career, Patricia has served in Korea; Yokosuka, Japan; and at Headquarters Marine Corps, Arlington, VA.  She also followed literally in her mother’s boot steps to mold recruits when she served as a drill instructor at Parris Island, SC.  She is currently stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Quantico, VA.

Becoming a Marine was a personal challenge that the Malone women are proud to have met and one Patricia knows that today’s women recruits are just as determined to meet. “Due to the training, the standards, the qualifications that are put on the individual … a lot of them don’t make it,” Patricia said. “When they don’t make it, they go back home [for a while] and many come back through [Parris Island] because I’ve seen it happen … because they just want to be a Marine.”

The personal drive to exemplify the ideals of the Marine Corps remains as strong in life as it does in service, both women said. The desire to “be a Marine,” will always be a part of the mother and daughter who each earned the privilege of wearing “the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.”

By Marcy Reborchick, Oral History Director, Women’s Memorial Foundation (February 2008)

All excerpts in this piece are taken from the Joyce and Patricia Malone Collection. Joyce and Patricia Malone,  Nov. 3, 2007, transcript, Women’s Memorial Foundation Oral History Collection, Women’s Memorial Foundation, Arlington, VA.

If you are a servicewoman or woman veteran and you would like to sit down with our oral historian to share your story of service, the Foundation would be delighted to add your oral history to our growing collection. Please contact our Oral History Department at oralhistory@womensmemorial.org or 703-533-1155 or 800-222-2294, . The Foundation welcomes oral history donations for its extensive oral history collection in audiocassette, CD and DVD formats.