Marie Barret - November 8

Today Marie Barret shared with us some of the many things she did in her 20 years in the U.S. Navy.  Marie was born in Jamaica.  She was told as a child that you can be what you want to be.  Her family worked hard to get from Jamaica to America, but all of them did make it.  While in Middle School she qualified for the Junior Olympics, but her mother wanted to move to Florida, and so she had to give up that idea of doing the Junior Olympics.  In High School she was a track star and was thinking of going to a 4-year college and study marine biology, but didn’t quite pass the test needed to get it done.  Instead, she followed her brother’s footsteps and decided to join the Air Force, but they didn’t pass that test, so instead took the Navy’s test and passed with flying colors. 

 

During her career in the Navy she traveled to many countries in her 20 years.  When she began her career in the Navy there was not too many females, but she did learn how to use all the different equipment on a destroyer.  She was transferred to 12 different commands.  She served on two different tender destroyers.  Many times, she helped service destroyers while in the water and also helped service submarines.  She said if they could not be repaired, they went directly to dry dock.
 
One of her favorite places was Japan.  When stationed in Japan, she learned that when you left the ship, you had to have another sailor with you.  A young sailor and herself went and climbed Mt. Fuji.  At the time they climbed, there was a couple of (80-year-olds) who was climbing too.  Marie and the young sailor, of course, forgot to pickup some water, but the 80-year-olds shared some of their water.  They realized that it wasn’t really water – it was wine that they were drinking. She showed us her walking stick that she used to climb Mt. Fuji.  Mt. Fuji is 12,388 ft. above sea level and one of the beautiful things to see was the sunrise/sunset because it actually was below Mt. Fuji.
She shared with us about a tradition that the Navy did each time it crossed the equator.  This was to make the sailors stronger. 
 
She told us about one of the times she was discriminated against because she was a woman.  But one of the Commander’s realized what was happening and if her name was not on the list, no one was going to get a promotion.  No one got a promotion, but the Commander recommended that she be sent to Quam because he felt she could get along with those people.
 
Today, there is many women in the Navy and some of them are high ranking.  While in the Navy Marie got married, but is now a single mom to her sons.  She is quite active with the Veterans in Post 131 and 
other Veteran affairs.