Woman vet selected as marshal of parade

The focus of the 2009 Veterans Day parade will be on the women who serve in the armed forces.

That is why Yuma resident Maria Currie, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, has been selected as grand marshal for the parade.

For Currie, who was on active duty nearly 60 years ago, this will be the second time she has been the grand marshal for the Veterans Day parade in Yuma.

"I'm excited and very honored," Currie said. "This is the year (parade organizers) decided to honor women veterans and...I guess I am the oldest woman veteran (the organizer) knows, so he decided I’d be the grand marshal."

Staff Sgt. Gabriel Garcia, a 2001 graduate of Kofa High School, will be the co-marshal. Garcia was severely wounded in January of this year, and holds many prestigious medals of commendation.

The Veterans Day parade begins at 8:45 a.m. Nov. 11 at 17th Place and 4th Avenue. It will proceed south along 4th Avenue before turning east on 25th Street and ending at the American Legion building, 2575 S. Virginia Drive. For more information, call 344-9523.

Currie said she doesn't necessarily think women veterans should be honored any differently then men.

"Well, I’ve always felt just being a veteran was enough. That was all I needed. When they built the veterans memorial for the women I wasn’t really thrilled about it. I figured if they had something that commemorated the Air Force, that was enough."

Currie said she doesn't have a problem with having women serve on the front lines.

"Some years back I was interviewed with Lucille, another woman veteran, and they asked how we felt about women going to the front and things like that and we said we were in favor of it. We felt if you joined up you wanted to do everything, and so the guys back at the post started saying, ‘well in the next war you and Lucille can go. We’re staying home.'"

Currie came to Yuma in 1953, right after she left the Air Force.

"I got married in Las Vegas and then my husband and his friend came down here and found jobs. I started teaching at Gila Vista in 1955 and taught there until 1989. I still see some of my students. Some of them are around and they remember me."

Currie was born in New York City and was raised in New Jersey. She graduated from high school in 1944 and then from college in 1947. She joined the Air Force two years later.

Currie said she initially wanted to be a nurse, but decided that job wasn't right for her.

"The first thing I joined was the Nurses Cadet Corps, but right after I signed up for it (the government) cut back on the program for some reason. I was in college at the time and I would have gotten my RN and BS, but I found I couldn’t take the smells and the sight of blood, so I switched to teaching."

Currie said she joined the service to escape from a man who broke her heart.

"One of the main reasons I went into the service is because I wanted to get away. I had a romance that went sour and that is why I joined the Air Force and then had the best odds (with men) anybody could ask for."

According to Currie, the Air Force wasn't her first choice.

"I didn’t pass the physical for the Navy. I first tried the Navy but I had an astigmatism and I didn't pass, but the Air Force had me sign a waiver and I was accepted, so I went into the Air Force and I’m glad I did, considering what I’ve heard about the Navy since then. I was much better off in the Air Force. I lucked out on that one."

Currie completed basic training, and was then given the duty to help train pilots.

"I was sent to Randolph Air Base and was an instrument flying instructor," she said. "They had mock-up planes in a hangar and you pull a hood over them and put the cadets in there and teach them how to fly using only instruments, so if they can't see they could land or take off by instrument."

Currie said she got to go up with a pilot once a week to practice what she was teaching the cadets.

"Every Saturday the instructors got to go up in a real plane with a real pilot and he would pull a hood over us and have us go through the stuff."

According to Currie, some of the pilots didn’t like the idea of taking women instructors up.

"This one Saturday morning I was with one of those (pilots) and he was swearing at me and I told him, ‘I’m not one of your cadets. You can’t swear at me.’ He did some more swearing and told me to take it in for a landing, so I told him to take it in for himself. I wouldn't touch the stick and the plane was going down, down, down and I had no intention of pulling it out. At the last minute he did, and he was furious."

Currie said the pilot got what he deserved.

"He went storming into the colonel who was in charge there, but he didn’t know that colonel was also in charge of the hangar I worked for. The colonel wanted to hear my side so I told him I wasn’t one of (the pilot’s) cadets and he can’t swear at me. The pilot was the one who ended up getting the chewing out."

Currie said she thoroughly enjoyed her years in the service.

"In fact I would have stayed in except back in those days you couldn't be married at first, and then they kind of relaxed that, but then you couldn't have any children. Now-a-days you can. I just lived in the wrong generation. I’d be in now if I could."

Chris McDaniel can be reached at cmcdaniel@yumasun.com or 539-6849.