The USO

Every week for our WWII discussion group I research a topic to talk about, and print out some pictures. Last week I read about a woman named Ruth Gruber who just passed away at 105. She was an amazing person. She got accepted to NYU at 15 and was the youngest person (not just the youngest woman, but the youngest person) in the world to earn a doctorate. She was studying in Cologne, Germany and saw what was about to happen with the Nazis.

She became a journalist and volunteered to be on the ship that brought the only load of Jewish refugees permitted from Europe to the US. They dodged Uboats the whole way but about a thousand people were saved from the concentration camps. Originally, they were only going to be allowed to stay for the duration of the war but Gruber fought to make sure the were allowed to apply for citizenship, and won. 

She was asked by the President Truman to witness what was going on with the European Jews after the war. So she got herself on the Exodus, a boat loaded with all nationalities of Jews who were being sent to British-controlled Palestine. They refused to get off the ship and painted a swastika on the Union Jack, which remains one of Gruber's most enduring photographs. Google Ruth Gruber. She was an amazing woman.

But no matter what we talk about, the topic always veers off into something fascinating. Today, one of the residents, and I'm purposefully not using any names, talked about growing up in Iowa and being a teenager when service members would come through town on their way home from a tour. 

The USO would work with families to provide soldiers with a shower, a meal and a bed. Joyce (I'm just gonna call all the lady residents Joyce and the guy residents Bob) said the soldiers either ate until they couldn't eat anymore or got into bed and slept well into the next day.

Joyce was 16 and 17 when the USO hosted several dances in her Iowa town for soldiers passing through on their way home from war. She says the soldiers were nothing like what we would expect them to be. They weren't tough guys. They were kids, just a couple years older than her. And she and the other girls had to approach them, take them by the hand and lead them out onto the dance floor. 

And for the most part, they didn't say anything. They didn't want to talk. They just wanted to wrap their arms around the girls and bury their noses in their necks, if just for a moment. And Joyce and the other girls let them.  

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