like how to march. I wasn’t very good because I am left- handed and often get my left and my right mixed up.” Bouton’s first assignment after completing boot camp had her packing her bags and sent her moving — from the fifth floor of the Biltmore Hotel, to the seventh. “After boot camp, I met with a classification officer,” said Bouton. “She saw that I used to be a teacher and offered me a position as a boot-camp instructor. So I stayed there and taught organization. Of the three different courses (personnel, organization and activities), mine was the dullest of all of them.” Schools and tours When her tour as a boot- camp instructor was complete, Bouton served a short stint in San Francisco as a maintenance worker before transferring to Radioman school at Atlantic City, N.J. “I wrote a woman over there that I knew because I wanted to know what it was like,” said Bouton. “Stamps were rationed back then, but I took advantage of the government’s correspondence method back then by writing the word ‘free’ in place of the stamp. The lady I knew wrote me back saying, ‘Don’t come here! It’s horrible. The barracks are a firetrap, there isn’t any heat, the meals are terrible and the hours are long, but there is one good thing, they have hot water. One of the girls got scalded when the hose broke off the washing machine.’” “I didn’t think it could be that bad, so I went to the school anyway,” Bouton said. “I was wrong—it was much worse.” At school, Bouton learned the necessary skills and became a certified radioman. “I learned a lot there—Morse code and some other things,” Bouton recalled. “I didn’t know what it all meant at the time, but I learned it.” Now a Coast Guard radioman, Bouton was stationed in Bethany Beach, Del., where she performed all the job functions her male counterpart had done before he went off to fight in the war. “At the station, it was only another woman and me who ran the equipment,” Bouton said. “We would send weather information, track the movement of boats, and send coordinates to ships.” “Toward the end of the war, we were all waiting to hear the official word that the war had ended,” Bouton said. “Our chief was sleeping one morning, and some of the people I worked with were bored and decided it would be a good time to wake up our chief. One of them got a metal pipe and started banging on a pan. Someone on the outside heard the racket and they started making noise themselves, and the noise carried on throughout the neighborhood. Soon, everyone in town was honking their car’s horn. Everyone thought the war was over! The official word eventually came out a few days later, but I am sure everyone there thought the Coast Guard had some inside information.” Hospital visits to letters With the war now over, Bouton moved back to Illinois and continued with her career as a first grade teacher. “Every now and then, I would have my students write cards to the injured war veterans,” Bouton said. Afterwards, she would take the cards the children had written and deliver them to a local veteran’s hospital along with a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. On one such trip, a member of the Coast Guard was at the hospital recuperating from some injuries he sustained during the war. Bouton and he became instant friends. From that moment on, she would always visit the Coast Guard members first and would forever be known as “The Coast Guard Lady”—a much more personalized nickname from her previous “Chocolate Chip Lady,” because of the cookies she baked. Bouton continued her mission at the veteran’s hospital for years until the day came when she decided to retire to the warmer climate of Rogers, Ark. “I still wanted to keep in touch with the Coast Guard, and without a veteran’s hospital to visit, I started writing my letters,” Bouton said. “I called up someone in the Coast Guard, I still can’t remember who it was, and I asked them for the address of an isolated unit in Alaska. I got the address and wrote them a letter. A few weeks later, I got a response back. It felt so good that I wrote more letters. Somewhere along the way, I got a hold of a Coast Guard address book and wrote to more units.” Today, Bouton has three index card boxes full of addresses that she writes to throughout the year, and she receives cards and letters from people throughout the Coast Guard, including the commandant. Appreciated by Coast Guardsmen everywhere It’s early December 2006, and Bouton ventures out into the cold, blustery Arkansas air and approaches her mailbox like she does any other day. She retrieves her mail and returns to the inviting warmth of her home. She becomes elated as she opens the oversized envelope and pulls out a card and small photo from a retired Coast Guard telecommunications specialist. In part, the card reads: “Did you know that your cards always seem to get put up first and taken down last? You are very much appreciated by all Coasties everywhere.” Bouton’s face, flush with joy, now bears a smile that seems to stretch past her oversized spectacles and says, “It’s cards like this one that make it all worth it.” � —Story and photos by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi Issue 2 • 2019 � RESERVIST 31
