The Hostess with The Mostess: The USO Girls of WWII

This week we're talking hostess'- no- not the cupcakes, the USO Hostess' during the war! These are the women who worked day and night in the USO Clubs so that soldiers had a safe way to socialize with women. A USO Hostess was classified as a respectable, middle-class woman, who worked tirelessly to help keep up the morale of young GIs. These women were trained on how to interact with soldiers and took their job of raising morale very seriously! Their job was just one more that women undertook on the homefront, often taking the Mobile USO trucks out to remote areas and training camps so they could visit with soldiers. Join us for fresh coffee and sinkers as we unpack the history and selflessness of the USO Hostess! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hey guys, here comes the dollars. They got fresh sinkers, hot coffee, and the sweetest smile. Welcome back to the Club Mobile, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

We are super excited to have you all back with us today. And once again, we're taking it back to the days of just Winnie and I having a good yap. Just a good yap. These are some of my favorite. I love having guests come on and I love getting to talk to such incredible people. But every once in a while, I love to just sit down and like just have a good yap, just me and you.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

And I feel like we learn so much doing these as well. Because it really like has us like digging our nails into all this new stuff. And I really love sharing it with um with everybody else. Me too. I love I love sharing what we have found and I love sort of like throwing it back to everyone else to be like, what did we get wrong? What could we have said? What could we have added? You know, that kind of stuff. Absolutely. It's really enjoyable. I also love the occasional episode where we don't have to show our face because I can just, you know, we could just roll up, we can just roll up in our comfy clothes and I'm I'm really glad no one can see me right now. I'm in an oversized uh Stardew Valley t-shirt and a pair of leggings that I bought when I was pregnant the first time. So we're excited to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

I am too. I am too. I feel like every time we kind of dip back into the Hollywood uh glamour era of the 40s and the USO, you get really excited. And yes, I get really excited because I'm like, she's gonna have a moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, I love I love talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

He's gonna shine.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I love, I love talking about um this particular group of women. I think it's because as well, it was something that I knew about before we began this. So it's nice for me to revisit things that at the time had no meaning and now they have so much meaning.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

It's very true. It's very true. You always kind of know, like, you know, hey, the celebrity sold war bonds, but yeah, there's always like another layer to it. Always like celebrities selling war bonds. I swear I feel like we're peeling back an onion because every time we get somewhere, I'm like, wait a minute, there's more.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

There's more and more to it. And uh especially this group of women, you know, they were we we we talk about the Red Cross girls and the Aero Clubs, and we've spoken about, of course, the Hollywood canteen and the stage door canteen at length for multiple episodes. This group of women, the so-called USO girls, um, I feel like they were such an amalgamation of both of these things, but also entirely completely separate. They were sort of regarded as an offshoot of both things.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

And then the the USO girls' mission was to make the fellas feel at home, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Like the mission was very similar across every kind of offshoot of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

It seems to be like every single woman was told the same thing, even if they were a part of these different groups.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

The mission was very much the same. The the men, the GIs were the absolute top-tier focal point for everything. But I was not surprised but not surprised to find out that the USO their qualifications were much not much, they were much less and much more um of the physical versus the education and the mental. Whereas the Red Cross was like, you have to be educated, you have to have held a job before you signed up, you have to be within a certain yeah, you have to be within a certain age bracket. The USO qualification was charming beauty. You had to be charming, you had to be beautiful, and looks didn't hurt either.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah, the the rules for the USO girls were slightly more lax due to the fact that they were not enlisting in any sort of military branch.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Right. Um even though the Red Cross was civilian and not a military branch, they still functioned with the stringency of a military branch.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, so essentially these women were here just to have a good time, to show the GIs a good time before they went off to war. And um, a lot of them sort of lauded the group as a way to bulk up their social life and a way to make more friends. So it was far more lax than any other group of women that we have discussed in this capacity.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

But they did they did still have a they did still have a serious job.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

I mean they did, yeah. They were they were trained. You know, the training wasn't as intense as, say, the Red Cross or as I wouldn't even say those at the Hollywood canteen had training. They had talks and they had lectures, and this was something sort of similar. Um, they were taught how to speak to the men, they were taught how to soften homesickness.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

They were sort of taught how to talk to the men that had returned from war already, whether they were medically discharged, injured, that kind of thing. Um, sorry, it's called wounded peanut. And injured when you fall out of a tree. Um, they would they were taught how to speak to these to these men in such a way that they felt understood. Right. So it was it was a lot to learn, but yes, not as intense as any other any other branch that we have spoken about. Um so the USL girls hung around the clubs and they did the general activities that we have spoken about many times. They would play cards, they would speak with the men, and again, there's the line of providing a taste of home. Right, right. Not making them feel homesick, not making them feel scared or lonely. Um one of the quotes about the USO girls and the clubs that really stuck out to me was from Our Mother's War by Emily Yellen. And she essentially said that the women were charged with providing friendly diversion to the younger troops, to troops in the early to mid-twenties. So really it was please distract this puppy before he goes and say, I mean that it's that's the most simple way to put it, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

So let's back up with what exactly was a USO Club. So USO Club was a United Service Organization Club. They were formed in 1941, and these centers just very quickly began began popping up everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yes, they knew that a lot of troops needed support, and what better way to give males support than to bring in women? Um once again, send in the girls. Once again, send in the girls. Um these women were all screened essentially. They were uh essentially put in front of a judging panel. Right. Um they I I believe they did have to have a good education, but I believe they had to be in college. I don't think they had to have had a degree, but they were pre-screened and seen if they were quote good girls and sexually respectable. Of course, relationships and dating were banned with with the GIs, but a lot of women did not listen. Of course they didn't.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Um these women were basically recruited to serve donuts, dance, talk with the troops, and they were essentially a Red Cross Arrow Club kind of offshoot.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

But the the big the biggest task was boosting morale.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah, the same as as every group we've kind of discussed is the the the point was to boost uh boost morale for these men and to you know that there was one quote I found when we were researching this, and it was to make the men less scared of the going into the face of the war. It was to sort of, you know, that there was the the quote was something like, Now I've danced with this woman, I feel less scared about going to war. There's something to win the war for. And as much as they love their country, and as much as they were so patriotic, it was actually a a pretty girl who was dancing with him at a club that made him feel um less scared. But yes, a lot of a lot of the girls ignored the the rule of no dating. A lot of them married the soldiers that they met at the clubs as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yeah. So and they were, I mean, mostly middle class, mostly white women. And they were they were class, they would be classified as sexually respectable, which is again where the no fraternization rule comes in.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, but obviously it was ignored. Correct. Because of course it was. There was one desegregated unit for African American USO girls and African American troops. Um I didn't just one, and I and I never found the location of said group or like the USO center where they operated out from.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

I never found the I'm not surprised, but this is where I'm like, oh, because there was there were multiple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Across the world too.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Across the world, multiple and in Europe, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

One one, and I'm not entirely sure where that was located. I don't know if that was here in the States. So if you were nowhere near it, you were that was it shit out of luck, basically. Essentially, yeah, you were shit out, like which sucks. Oh, I mean, it's abhorrent. Um it is, but for the time period, of course, it's sort of like uh, well, that's not surprising.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Right. It's sort of very much like, well, we gave you one.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah, it's sort of like a really shit answer, isn't it? We gave it away.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

It's a very backhanded, it's a very backhanded way of saying, you know, here you go. We gave you one, okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, it's um it's extremely and and the fact that I could never find where it was exactly. So that just adds another layer.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

If anybody out there listening happens to know where the one singular African American USO club was located, please let us know. Yeah, I would love to send us a message and let us know where it was because we had a very hard time finding it.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Very hard time finding it. I believe these girls were also put in front of a committee and they were also judged upon the same way that the white women were. So I believe at least that was across the board. There was no sort of, you know, issue.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Right. It's not like they, it's not like they screened the African-American women and just let in all the white women. They literally screened everybody.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yes, exactly. Um, and the women knew that they were there to provide much-needed morale. And there was another quote that I found from someone on a USO committee that would, you know, judge all these girls put in front of them. And um, they said that they would pick them and they knew that the men needed the company of women. They knew the men needed the company of a pretty girl on a Saturday. Um apparently that would make him more patriotic and more willing to face the enemy.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

If you got to dance with a pretty girl.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah. Yeah. So I I know that that these men were incredibly patriotic, and I know that of course the women were as well. Um but something about that that quote was it's I found it very sweet. Of all the um of all the things to make a man want to win a war, it's it's a lovely face. It's a pretty face. Yeah. Yeah. They had some pretty strict rules.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

They did. I think they took a lot of cues from the Red Cross, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

They absolutely did. Um, which I I found quite surprising, yet the women that were in the USO clubs, they found them a lot stricter. Whereas now I'm looking at it and I'm like, oh, it's kind of lax. Really? It's just like there were three big rules, one of which was that the girls couldn't leave until the dance with the event was over, and they could only leave with their designated chaperone. So if they had arrived independently with either another group of women or the person they were on a date with, they could only leave with them.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Right. So if you came with a group, you kind of leave with your group and your chaperone. And if you came in a private car, you could leave immediately after the dance was over, but you couldn't leave before the dance was finished. No, you're which then begs me to then begs the question: what happened if your date had to leave? Like a lot of times these men would get orders like, you know, we're moving out in two hours. Yeah. What would happen? This begs the question of now, what would happen if now your date has left and you came in a private car with your date, and now do you go back with another group? Like, do you kind of tack yourself on to a group that came with a chaperone and go back with them? What do you what were the rules there? Not allowed to leave alone. So you act you probably have to tack yourself on to a chaperone or let a chaperone know, hey, listen. Growing up in an era without like chaperones, to me, it's like Yeah.

unknown 13:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

What would happen? What would happen? I have a lot of questions about this.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Lots of questions. I probably what would have happened was that the person in charge at the time would have been told, and then the girl would have been designated somebody else, or the person in charge would essentially send someone with them. Right. Probably. I I believe that would probably be the case. That's another thing that isn't very clear, and I didn't even think to ask that. So that was that was pretty good. I'm not just a fancy hat rack.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

I didn't even I was like, oh yeah, they just left. They would just let them leave. You know, because a lot and then like a lot of times, like especially like in areas that were heavily bombed, you know, you read and you read about this a lot in other books where it's like, you know, you were at a Red Cross dance, you were at an aero club, and the buzz bombs came and everybody had to leave and seek shelter, which a lot of times meant that the soldiers would go off with their unit to do what they had to do. So where did that leave these girls? Yeah, it's a very, you know, double-edged situation where it's like, well, did these girls just all kind of pack themselves together and leave together? Did they seek shelter, like where the men would designate them to seek shelter? It's there's a lot of questions there. There's a lot of moving parts. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah. It's something I never actually thought of. That's very clever. I like that. I didn't even think about it. I was like, oh yeah, they just went with someone and they left with someone and never thought of it. Never thought of it any other way. So back to the requirements, as we said, they were pretty lax in comparison to anything else. Oh, yeah. Any other group that we have discussed. Um it wasn't a rule, but many of the girls held jobs and they used this time to volunteer to serve their country. So this was basically volunteer work, whereas a Red Cross was their job. They weren't officially quote unquote enlisted. They were not attached to any kind of auxiliary or official military. Right. They were just there to voluntarily serve their country, and a lot of them did it to improve their social lives because they made so many friends, and a lot of them would break the rule and go on dates with the GIs that they were not supposed to. But the organization bragged that they had rounded up the loveliest girls in the nation. They thought that they had the best-looking group of girls to entertain these men. They I I think they kind of talked it up because it was the USO clubs were meant to be for the GIs to use. Yeah. They were meant to be specifically for these men, and they had to kind of talk it up to sort of say this is the only place you should go when you're in the area. Right. Even if even if you were in LA and you wanted to go to the Hollywood canteen, like, yes, go and visit, because it's sort of like a tourist trap by go and visit, have Joan Crawford serve you a sandwich. Yeah, go and visit, have Betty Davis give you coffee and cigarettes, you know, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

When you're done, go to the USO Club and dance with the prettiest girls.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah, it's sort of like going from, you know, meeting stars to then going back to normalcy. Is this you may you may have just danced with Ava Gardner, who is wearing an apron and a dish towel tucked away. But now you're gonna dance with Jane Doe. Now you're gonna dance with just some regular gal, because that is who you're fighting for.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

It's true. It's so true.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

That's who you're winning the war for, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

They had a handbook, which I think is very interesting. Every organization had a handbook. You go back through the depths of you go back through the depths of what was given out at the time of the war to anybody who participated and volunteered or signed up in any capacity. Everybody had a handbook. Everybody had a handbook, everybody had a pamphlet. This was called Hail Hostess. Yes. Hail hostess. Be sure you're sweet and clean. Consider clothes carefully. Slacks were not permitted. Right? So pants for these girls, slacks were not permitted as the men wanted, the men wanted girls to look like girls.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

I don't think the men would have been that bothered, to be honest. I think this was the organization's sort of fib. I don't think the men would have been too upset if they saw women in slacks.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Men of the 40s would cringe if they saw what I wore to work today.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

And also these men, a lot of them loved Catherine Hepburn. And Catherine Hepburn wore nothing but slacks.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

So they wouldn't have been bothered.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

They would have said, Oh, wait, it's they would not have been bothered. They would have literally said, Oh, a girl. Literally, yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

They would have said, Oh, a girl. It's he's a girl. Um that's exactly what would have happened. They just wanted to have a lovely time with these women, and they wanted to forget that they were about to go overseas potentially to their demise.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

And I think I really think that was a USO-instructed rule that they, you know, no slacks because the men want girls to look like girls. No, I think the USO might have seen it in the sense of, well, you know, they'll go to a Red Cross club where you know a dolly is sitting there serving them coffee and donuts and she's wearing a skirt and you know, they could see her legs. Whereas if we let them wear slacks here, they're gonna go. They're not gonna come to us, they're gonna go where the real girls are.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Yeah, that was, I think that was a part of it as well. I think um they again they had bragged.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

As I air quote on the real girls.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah. They bragged that they had rounded up the loveliest girls in the nation, and I think they wanted to, you know, keep adhering to that by making the most feminine and the most girly. So the handbook had a lot of I think in this time period we would say a lot of nonsense.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

A lot of word salad.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

A lot of word salad, a lot of there was some helpful stuff in there though, like how to speak to a GI who had come home with shell shock, which obviously you now know PTSD. How to help them write letters home to their parents, how to help them write letters home, how to they would also like line them up with um assistance and help, especially post-war. Yeah. Because while the Hollywood canteen closed very quickly after the war, the USO centers stayed open long term. Yeah. And they would, these girls would still volunteer and they would help the men find housing, find jobs, how to readjust to normal life. Um, and they would do like groups and games and give these men a community to return home to. Which is essentially what the USO still does today.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

The USO still exists. Yes. It's just it's the USO has evolved with the years have as they've passed, and they are still a support center and a support community for members of the United States military and their families.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

It's no, it's no longer just an entertainment platform.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Right. It's not just an entertainment platform anymore, which it still is. They still do provide entertainment for the troops. I mean, I think I remember once upon a time seeing some videos or some photos of like, I think it was Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson were on a USO plane going over to visit the troops. And it's like they still do what they used to do. They just have added on to it in a more familial way, where you can now support a soldier and his wife and his children or her husband. And her children. Exactly. It's, you know, which is, I think, a great thing to see how it's stood the test of time and continued to provide.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Yeah. And it has evolved so much. Of course, now it's not just the prettiest girls. It's not just the loveliest girls in the nation.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

The USO is not just providing the loveliest girls in the nation anymore. They're providing, you know, financial support and really anything that a sold anything that a military family might need.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah, which I find the fact that it stood the test of time and the fact that it still does so much work. Because obviously back back then they knew nothing about how to help a soldier readjust back to civilian life.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Rather social workers didn't exist, right? Somebody that you could sit with and, you know, psych psychologists. I mean, a a shrink, a shrink would exist, but it wasn't. I mean, if you saw a shrink back in the 40s and 50s, you were one step away from taking a vacation with the grippy socks. I mean, truly, if you had to see a shrink during that time, you were, you had to be nuts. There was something not right. You had to be unstable. Whereas now, I think everybody, everybody's like, my therapist, my therapist. Like, everybody's our therapist today. Everybody sees a doctor, everybody's our therapist.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

As they should. It's a very great thing. It's a very good thing. And I'm glad that we have moved on from the stigma of back then. But the fact that correct the fact that it can still provide so much, especially to the men and women that have fought overseas in these modern times as well. You know, it's it's a great organization. And they, yes, they still do the entertainment kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Oh, yeah, they still bring in the celebrities, but yeah, that's not its main focus anymore.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Yeah, I feel like the the USO, while it was great during World War II, I feel like during the Korean War was really when it was noticed. Like they had Marilyn Monroe in Four go entertain the troops during the Korean War.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Yeah, didn't she take a solo diversion? She was on her honeymoon with Joe DiMaggio and she just kind of diverted on her own and was like, hey, I'm gonna go do this USO thing, I'll be back.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yeah, literally. She just popped in, and uh, from the video clip that I've seen, there is the amount of men stuffed in this designated area, yeah, always tickles me. And they're all just like they're all cheering because it's Marilyn. Um but these girls, these women, they did it purely out of love for their country and purely out of wanting to help.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

They did that is lost on a lot of people today. Doing something for the love of your country. Yes, doing something for patriotism, but it's a very lost it's a lot. I don't want to say lost tradition because doing something like that is not a tradition, it's a lost value. Yes, and I think that the fight today where people say, you know, I'm doing this for our country. Yeah, uh not always. I see things and I'm like, but are you really? Yeah, or are you doing it for the clout on Instagram or Facebook?

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Are you doing it for media attention? Are you doing it for the right reasons?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, yeah. Are you doing it to be paid?

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Are you doing it to be paid? Yeah, you're doing it to be paid. People in the USO back then did this for not this was a volunteer job. These women would work during the day, they would be secretaries, maybe they worked in a factory during the day, and then they would find the time to give, right? They would dig into their very, very sparse personal time and still find the time to give. Because you know, my husband's in Europe, my brother's in the Pacific. So maybe if I do this here, I'm giving back in a way that I can contribute that might support my brother, or it might clear the head of a soldier who's gonna go on the line next to my brother or my husband, and his clear head might help my husband or my brother survive. Yeah, I'm you know, I'm giving back in this is the way I know how.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

It's very um, it's a very lost, it's a very lost value today, and it really sucks, man. It sucks.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

It's so admirable that these women would essentially give everything. Like they're they're giving, they're working through the day.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Well, they're raising children during the day.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

But well, they're raising children during the day, and they then decide I'm gonna do one more thing and I'm gonna volunteer even further. Correct. Their lives have already been changed by entering the workforce, so they're doing a hard day's labor. They're expected to take up the same job as a man to prove themselves anyway. And then they go home, they somehow have the energy to get cleaned up, put on a nice dress, and go help a guy who's about to go overseas and be on the front line. And somehow me playing cards with them is gonna help them. There's a really great book I've had my eye on that we need to read. I would love to put it in the book club um through the year or next year. Um, it's called Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun. And it's a story of the USO Hostesses during World War II by Megan K. Winchell. Um, so I would love for anyone to check it out. I haven't read it yet, it's been on our list forever. I think we should definitely squeeze that in. We should stick it in somewhere because um I know it has a lot of information in it. Obviously, it has way more information in it than we have imparted today. I think we should put it in in our little book club because I think that despite the fact that it wasn't as well known, I think it was just as important. Yeah. As anybody else we have spoken about, even though they were essentially so they they were never defined as an offshoot. That's just my definition of when it's a good thing. But if you look at it, I mean if you look at it, it's so similar.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

The the you know, the physicality of it is yeah, it's it's a it's the same but different. Or it's different but the same. You know, the name is different, the it the name is different, the function is the same.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

They were not paid for this job, whereas obviously, of course, the Red Cross girls were paid for their job. Correct. They were not they were not technically attached to any army, they were just an independent organization, and they did not have to do it.

unknown 28:57

No.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

They were they were volunteering their time and the volunteering to boost morale of these men. It must have been so haunting to to dance with one of these men and think, oh, he's leaving. Is he marching off to his death in the morning? Right. Or even it's equally haunting to then have to entertain a man who has just come back from you know doing it. Watching six of his yeah, six of his buddies die. Yeah, he's just come back from doing his allocated missions overseas, and now he's home and he's expected just to hop, skip, and jump straight back into civilian life with zero support. And I'm the one that has to provide that support.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

That must have been incredibly daunting.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

I think one of the things that we tend to forget a lot of the times is that America called on women, you know, we need you, we can do it. But you know they still a lot of these women, they still, you know, there was nothing that mandated them to do it. There was no mandatory, like the draft for men. Men were drafted, men were required to serve up until a certain age point, obviously. Yes, you know, health, you know, pending and all that. Men were required, this was their job to go and fight. And if you were 4-H or over the age of cap of ability, you were, you know, maybe required to take a desk job within a military office. Yes, you know, hey, he served in World War I, but he's aged out now for World War II, but we're gonna put him behind a desk.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

He's gonna still, he's still gonna give his service, he's gonna give something. The men were required. Women, while they were told to, this is your time, pick up your, you know, pick up your boots, Rosie. You know, we're going to the factory. Nothing mandated them. They had the, they had the autonomy to decide whether they wanted to do this or not. You know, she could have turned around a woman and said, I got four kids at home and I don't have time. I can't. But somehow they always still managed to find the time, which is why I'm always constantly in awe of the fact that they were never required to do it, they were, they were never mandated to do it. Yet, out of the goodness of their hearts, they did it for the good of their country. They found the time.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Somehow, somehow found the energy and the time.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

They found the energy, and I want to know where they found the energy because I'm still looking for it.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

And can I have some of that, please? I know. Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Where did they find it? I'm still looking.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

It's just love of the game, I think. It's just love of it.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

It's true, it's love of the game. You're 100% right. It's love of the game because when my alarm goes off Monday through Friday, and I have to get up and go to the office, I lay in bed, and you would think where they were dragging me off to, right? You would think where I had to go five days a week.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

When I have to get when I have to get up on a Saturday at whatever time we designate to record, out of bed, out of bed, ready to go, coffee pots going. I'm like, it's Saturday, it's it's doll, it's dolly time, right? It's podcast, it's it's time. And it really lends itself to doing something you love, doing something you want to do, you find the time. Right. Doing something you want to do, you find the time.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

It's not like required. It's not required.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

This is not required of me, right? This is not required of me after going to work five days a week. I'm not required to sit here with Winnie on a Saturday morning and drink my coffee and do this for for whatever reason. But we do because we want to.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Because we love it. And it's also so important that we it is so important that we that these stories get told.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Absolutely. Because this is not something that's ever sort of brought up in any in any documentary, in any kind of of course, there is now a book and it's his own independent story, but it's if you don't know how to venture out to look for it, you're not gonna find it. You're gonna come up with Hollywood canteen, stage door canteen, which is not a bad thing. I just don't feel like this should be kept as uh an afterthought because the work that these women did is just as important. I'm absolutely not told in school. It needs to be. Honestly, I have a very big dream of you and I every like three to six months, we buy a club mobile in England, we fix it up, we go around schools and bases dressed as dollies, and we teach these things to kids.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

If anybody knows where we can get an old green line bus in the UK.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

I have three dollars and a pack of juicy fruit as payment.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

We've got five dollars and a dream. We've got five dollars and a dream, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:05

We make good coffee, does that count?

SPEAKER_01 34:08

We do make good coffee.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Hey, here's your payment.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

And we're working on our we're working on our sinkers, but um Lardless. We're working on our sinkers. Lard is just Crisco, it's just Crisco today. Yes, it's Crisco.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Shortening, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah, it's shortening, it's Crisco. I bake with Crisco all the time. Yeah, I have an old cookie recipe from one of my great aunts, and it's from the 40s. It's an old Italian cookie recipe, it's a 40s recipe, and ask me how much butter. No butter. Ask me how much Crisco goes in those cookies. A cup of lard, a cup of shortening goes in those cookies. Yep, they are the best.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Just felt my arteries clogged.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

They are the best cookies. Delicious. So while we're working on our sinker recipe, I do make the best chocolate chip cookies, guys. So we could we could listen.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

We have ways of payment.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

We do.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

We've got ways of payment. Ways of payment and a dream. I've got two quid and I could offer you. I don't know. What do you want? Juicy fruit, ruffles, I mean, yeah. Croy bars. Oh, and smokes. But no, I think, you know, I think these women were were so great, and I hate the fact that they are essentially an afterthought in everything else. And I love learning more about them, and we need to get on with adding the book too.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

We do we gotta get that book, we gotta get that book in one of our rotations, either second quarter or third quarter.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Um because I would love to discuss this again after we know more. Because again, I love that when we do just the ones of you and I, it's a very basic knowledge. And it's basic, like I learned this, I'm telling you what I learned, and vice versa. Um and I love that we can then expand on it later through more resources and more.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yes. And I love that when we find a topic we love, we we then immediately go searching for the books because we then want to share those books with you guys and we want to share them with Sage. And I love when we get to something and Sage reads, I love it, when she reads the book, when Sage reads the book finally, and we get the we get the immediate texts of oh my god, I didn't know this. Did you get to this part in the book yet? I'm on track with this. There's something so fun about then sharing that knowledge with your friends.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

So I'm a hundred percent in favor of putting this in a rotation this year.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Look out for it. Look out for it. It will be there and we'll get it in. Uh probably another lengthy discussion about it, and probably because I always feel anxious and nervous that I've kind of not said the wrong thing. I feel like I've fed the wrong information to people. I love to be corrected. So I always get nervous when it's something that I want to talk about because I'm like, someone's gonna tell me off.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

No, no, no. I think that's one of the things. I think that's one of the things in this in this community where it's like nobody's gonna tell you off for being incorrect, but what they're gonna do is politely correct you.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Which is also fine, which is also fine, which is also fine.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Um, if you come at us and you if you come at us and you don't politely correct us though, okay. But no, I think that you know, I don't think I've encountered anybody in this community where they're like, No, hey, um, or a lot of times people are like, hey, I listened to your episode on this. Did you know this?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Or you know, that's what I want to happen. I want a discussion to sort of ignite and be like, I did not know that. Thank you for telling me.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Certain people are notorious for doing that, which means that certain people are becoming loyal listeners, which we love to see. Which is great, which is really great.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah, which I love. But no, I I think you know, that's an excellent point to end on. Is that I if I've got anything wrong, please correct me.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Um, I And if anybody knows where that one singular African-American USO club was, please tell us. Please let us know. We couldn't find it. Um so this is a call to the community. If you know where it was, give us a shout.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

And we will keep that information. We'll keep that information in our pocket.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Well, thank you everyone again for listening. We hope you enjoyed this one.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

I enjoyed this one.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

I had a good time this this morning.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

And that's all that matters is that we had a nice time.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

I had a nice time. Had a great time.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Thanks, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Thanks everybody for listening. We hope you had fun with us too, and we will catch you the next time that the Club Mobile rows through. Bye. Bye.