Retirement

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“Well, it brings back good memories. It brings back some bad ones. But — whatever I know is over — and I don’t have to live them again.”

“I guess I should [feel proud]. I went into a country that was against us and I made it. And I hope that I changed some of them because I got along good with them. With some of the people — that we had them was maids, house boys, and different things and I treated them like I should and I think they liked me or at least acted like they did. And I just didn’t have any hard feelings towards them because I knew they didn’t make the decisions. It was like the Americans. Only some people make the bad decisions and everybody had to abide by them. And it was the same way with the Germans.”

“Well, I was real proud that I was the first and in the first group [of women]. And that we won a war. [laughs] I was just real proud of it.”

Editor’s Note: After moving from Japan back to the United States and living in Oklahoma, Faye Edwards and her children joined her husband serving in Germany and later they retired in Columbus, Georgia. Edwards reflects on what her military experience meant to her, especially being one of the first groups of women to join the Army. Additionally, Edwards notes her relationship with the Japanese workers in Yokohama. While she explains that she has a good relationship with these workers, it is important to remember their unequal relationship as laborers in an occupied country.