103-Year-Old World War II Veteran Celebrates Marine Corps’ Birthday In Greensburg – CBS Pittsburgh

GREENSBURG, Pa. (KDKA) – Wednesday is the USA Marine Corps’ birthday. The Marines had been fashioned 246 years in the past in a bar in Philadelphia.

Marines young and old throughout the U.S. are celebrating their big day, together with a 103-year-old Marine from Greensburg. KDKA’s resident Marine Ross Guidotti spent a while with Madeline Buchek, whose service in World Struggle II helped pave the way in which for future feminine Marines.

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Though it’s been 78 years, Buchek says her recollections of her time as a Marine are as vivid as ever.

It doesn’t matter how previous they’re, each Marine remembers the second they determined to enlist, together with Cpl. Madeline Buchek.

(Photograph: KDKA)

She joined in 1943. And why the Marines? Properly, the Navy was out of the query.

“My associates had been going they usually had been going into the waves. I didn’t know methods to swim,” she mentioned.

With male Marines being shipped out to the Pacific to battle, feminine Marines had been tasked with stateside duties. Identical to their male counterparts, feminine Marines went in addition camp and had been skilled on weapons methods. Whereas she was a crack shot, Buchek ended up working a switchboard the place Marines had been coaching pilots.

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“There have been 10,000 males and 40 ladies,” she mentioned.

Buchek says her days as a Marine had been enjoyable and at instances humorous, however the lodging had been usually Marine Corps in nature: naked minimal.

“We relieved the lads there, it was type of like an previous steady,” she mentioned.

Buchek takes nice satisfaction in her service. Trailblazers like her would ultimately open doorways to alternatives for in the present day’s feminine Marines.

“I feel it’s fantastic,” she mentioned. “I feel it’s exceptional they allow that now.”

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Marines have a practice the place on the Marine Corp’s birthday, the oldest and youngest Marines current get the primary items of cake. Buchek and Ross Guidotti didn’t have any cake nor an enormous get together, however within the custom of their beloved corps, they made due with cupcakes.