At 103 years old, Dorothy “Dottie” Dee still stands with the same pride and strength she carried when she enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve in 1943.
“Did I pass inspection?” Dottie joked with a salute at a recent event honoring women veterans in Connecticut.
Beside her sat fellow Marine and Backpacks For Life board member Jamie DePaola. Different generations. One unbreakable bond. Both Marines.
“We were ordinary women,” Jamie shared.
“We did amazing things,” Dottie replied.
“But when we got that title Marine, we became extraordinary,” Jamie said.
Dottie was one of the first women to enlist during World War II, serving as an administrative clerk at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California. Like thousands of women during WWII, she stepped into a non-combat role to help “free a Marine to fight.”
“As I say, I didn’t have a gun. I had a typewriter,” Dottie said.
For decades, the contributions of women veterans often went unseen. Many never received recognition for their service and quietly returned home to build families and communities after the war.
“We were invisible,” Jamie reflected.
Today, that story is changing.
A powerful new book, Unspoken Valor, shares the stories of Connecticut women veterans through personal letters, journals, photographs, and artifacts. Created with the help of high school students from Loomis Chaffee School, the project preserves the voices and experiences of women who served when few were listening.
“The author of this book gives you hope for the future,” Dottie said. “That there are people, juniors in high school… honoring our stories.”
One of the driving forces behind the project is Army veteran Gladys Silva-Perales, founder of “She Served Too,” a mission dedicated to ensuring women veterans receive the recognition they deserve.
“Thank you for your service,” she said, “is something too many women veterans never heard.”
At Backpacks For Life, we are honored to support this mission. We will be purchasing copies of Unspoken Valor to share with women veterans in our community, and proceeds from the book will directly support our nonprofit’s work serving veterans in need.
“My heartfelt wish is… because there are so few of us left, the WWII female veterans, that I represent them honorably,” Dottie shared.
And she does.
If you are a female veteran and would like a free copy of Unspoken Valor, we would be honored to send you one while supplies last.
Thank you to every woman who served, led, sacrificed, and paved the way for future generations. Your valor was never unspoken to those who mattered most.
And now, the world is listening.
Special thanks to WFSB Channel 3 Eyewitness News and reporter Cierra Jordan for helping share and preserve the stories of these incredible women veterans.