From Gunpowder Girl To Working Woman; We manned the factories for 'our boys,' but what we learned there made us want more for ourselves.

Publication: Newsweek

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Byline: Sonya Jason, Jason lives in Woodland Hills, Calif.

The shock waves caused by Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor reverberated through the remotest corners of our country, even the coal-mining town of Jefferson, Pa., where my family lived. My parents, who had emigrated from Czechoslovakia to escape Europe's constant wars, were dumbstruck.

"Vojna, vojna" ("war, war"), my mother murmured, tears flooding her sad blue eyes. I was swept by a surge of fear. What would war mean to our family?

Young men lined up to enlist, among them my tall, handsome brother Nick. A trainer of racehorses since he was 12, he chose the cavalry. His fine steed turned out to be an Army jeep, but he got no sympathy from his sergeant. "Listen, GI," he bellowed,...

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