The Soldier of Stars [1] - Band of Brothers

➢ catherine mccown

" the greatest power is often simple patience."

- e. joseph cossmen

***

Catherine McCown knew she had to get involved in the war after she watched her two oldest brothers, Jack and Clark, sign up for the war on December 8th, 1941. 

The United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve or SPARs, for another name, was the place for her. 

Catherine, led under Dorothy C. Stratton, was deployed to Oklahoma A&M University, Stillwater, Oklahoma. 

Catherine was from a large family, 6 children, and she lived in upstate New York on a large farm. Her father owned a summer home in Kentucky, right next to their grandparents, and had horses there that stayed in the stable with their grandparents race horses. 

Their grandparents had made it big, winning the Kentucky Derby back a few years previous in 1939, so now each year, when they raced a horse, the McCown's went down and watched. Catherine adored horses, she truly loved them especially when she would wake up early on her grandparents farm and be able to visit the horses and ride them and the cute stable boy would come down and the two would always talk together. 

Catherine had been unable to go this summer though and so had her brothers who were in the Marine Corps. 

Their father had been a Marine in the Great War, something he never openly talked about with his family. But their mother had to hold him back from even signing up again, a 45 year old man. 

Her family didn't expect Jack and Clark initially to sign up, and get pulled into the war, they'd always been wealthy and her dad could get them out of situations, but this they couldn't. It was war. It was even more surprising when Catherine signed up. But she was a fighter, and with the ability to fire, strip and handle a weapon, made her an easy target for SPARs. 

On the train to Oklahoma in January 1942, Catherine met a few other women who were on their way to the same destination in hopes of getting closer to the front lines of war. 

Her little sisters had been fearful of Catherine going off to war, but Catherine had promised them that the only way they would win this war would be in their military strength and that she needed to go, to do whatever she could. She'd always been a mother figure for them when her mother was at work and couldn't raise them when they were younger like the way she had raised Catherine, so the 3 younger sisters, Millie, Penny and Mallory, always looked up to Catherine. 

When Catherine arrived with the group of women she was with, she was 1 out of the 11,000 enlisted and she was proud of it. She had gone to her first 2 and 1/2 years of college, but when the opportunity presented himself Catherine left for SPARs.

Growing up, Catherine had always been the prominent leader figure through her schooling years, and she had developed great friendships from doing so. She felt it was almost like a sense of duty though to uphold a leader position because she knew if she were ever in that position, she'd want a leader. She was also valedictorian from her graduating class, and through her training with SPARs it helped greatly as she reached the top of her class there as well. 

Catherine was proud of herself, proud of what she had accomplished in her schooling years and outside of her schooling years, and she was someone unafraid to speak her voice and her opinion. If something was wrong, she said something, that's just the way she was.

Her grandmother had told her that'll get her in trouble one day, but she had brushed that off and told her that if anything it'll get her somewhere great one day. She merely smiled with a twinkle in her eye. 

The training wasn't difficult, but it was designed to weed out the weak and the strong. The did runs in the morning and PT training, and then map training and codes and radio. It was an entire variety of training that varied with each day. The training lasted until March before they had completed the required amount of time before they were commissioned into SPARs as the form of an officer or an enlisted member. 

Through April and May, the women in her barrack, the elite, stayed close to base, preparing for greater outcomes if there were any. 

And then those greater outcomes came. 

The US Military put out a notice that was allowing women to join the military in small bunches. It would be in secret, the public would not know of the idea and the women would be spread throughout the multiple branches. 

Catherine was eager to sign up and get herself closer to front lines, just like her brother. She wrote down all the specifications she felt she needed to convince the US military that even as a woman she was prepared to fight. A group of girls received letters back and Catherine was one of them. None of the women in her barrack had gotten it though so the group huddled around Catherine as she opened the letter and began reading.

Sergeant Catherine McCown,

We are pleased to inform you that you've been selected as a part of the program to send women to the front lines. As you know, this will not be seen in the eyes of the public and all of this will occur in secret. Even though, in the government's eyes this is rather controversial, some believe this will be a success while others believe it will be a failure. You are part of the lucky 250 women who have been selected to be taken to the front lines and to fight alongside men for the greater good. You will be sent to into the Airborne, attached to the United States Army. The Airborne is a new section of the military where you will drop behind enemy lines, parachuting in and hopefully creating diversion for lands troops to come in. Colonel Sink is the commander of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment attached to the 101st Airborne Division. You will be placed into 2nd Battalion, Easy Company. Your rank will remain as you are, a Sergeant and from your detailed resume, you will enact yourself as a rifleman. You will train with the 250 women picked for this operation and then will be given further information after about where you will be stationed. The rules are that you do not tell anyone outside of your immediate family what you are doing and that you report straight to your sight of training. Fort Bragg in North Carolina will be your sight of training. Thank you for your interest in the program.

Sincerely,

The United States War Department

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