Kilgore WAC looks back on Army life

Opal Glenn receives an Army Commendation Ribbon from General Cole, for meritorious service as First Sergeant, 86th Women's Army Corps Hospital Company and non-commissioned officer in charge of WAC medical training at Letterman General Hospital from May 7, 1945 until April 1, 1946. In 1943 Opal G. Borders Glenn, longtime Kilgoreite and teacher, was approached by two girlfriends who were joining the military.

"They told me how they wanted to see about joining the service and they wondered if I would join with them," Glenn said. "I told them 'I'm not about to go,' then they asked me to just ride with them — and you know how that goes."

She did ride with her friends to Dallas that day and now, at 95, she looks back on a marvelous career and adventurous life.

"All of our hands were up before we knew it," Glenn said of the meeting in Dallas. "And I was on my way to Fort Oglethorpe, Ga."

Glenn recalls purchasing a new black suit at The Toggery before leaving.

"When I got to Ft. Oglethorpe, they issued me a size 48 mackinaw (coat) and a pair of army shoes, but I had to wear my new black suit for four weeks," she said.

While in Georgia, Glenn said she and other Texans were always lined up separately.

"They said if we were from Texas, we were strong people," Glenn said.

After the four-month stint at Ft. Oglethorpe, Glenn boarded a train to Denton for administration school.

"We couldn't raise the window shades on the train because they did not want people to know the train was a troop train," Glenn said.

Upon arrival in Denton,she said she was less than thrilled by the idea of attending administration school.

"I left behind teaching so I could do something different," Glenn said. " I remember admin school finished in another four weeks and they treated us to a dance."

According to Glenn's memory of that dance, the Army furnished chaperones for the dancing troops.

"There we were, many of us 30 years old with chaperones, just waiting to see if any soldiers were going to ask us to dance," Glenn said with a laugh. After the celebratory dance she found herself on another train. This time she headed west.

"I ended up in Alamogordo, New Mexico, at a B-29 air base," Glenn said. "I was in the white sands of New Mexico — talk about hot! You could sit on those GI beds and burn yourself."

While in New Mexico, Glenn worked in an office on post for awhile then she was on another train, heading further west, to Palo Alto, Calif.

"They met me at the station and told me the accommodations would not be too comfortable, but they assured me I would be all right and would like it anyway," Glenn said. "I went and lived on the second floor of President Hoover's home with 37 other women."

According to Glenn, this was in February and the women all slept on a sleeping porch.

"Lord it was cold with all the snow on the mountains and there was no heat out there on that sleeping porch," Glenn said. "It was beautiful there, but cold, cold."

After Palo Alto, Glenn ended up at Camp White, Ore., working in a physical therapy hospital.

"This was a big beautiful hospital, out in the boondocks," Glenn said. "It was where the injured came to be treated."

Finally she ended up in San Francisco, at Letterman General Hospital — overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge — as first sergeant of the detachment.

"We had 300 women in the barracks. I was in charge of seeing that all medical technicians and surgical technicians reported to their shifts," she said.

It was in San Francisco that Glenn met her husband, R.H. Glenn, of San Angelo.

"I was married in 1946 and discharged in 1950," Glenn said. "I went right back to teaching and we stayed in Mill Valley, Calif., for the next 22 years."

Nowadays, Glenn spends her time with family and friends, reading and putting together scrap books.

"This is my entire life, right here in these books," Glenn said of her albums. "And boy have I ever lived a good one."