The day commenced with the flashing of the television station’s mission statement over and over again. It was in English (with American translation !!):
“We beam the light on dark places”.
Anyway, what followed were early morning prayers, meditation, yoga, aerobics and diet tips for those who are victims of “underlying issues” such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension and asthma. There was no reference to bad breath, body odour or hair growing in the wrong places. There was a pause to deliver the warning by the Surgeon-General:
“Wear a mask; wash your hands; keep social distance and avoid crowds – especially in bars, restaurants and beaches.”
There was no mention whatever of COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead, what followed were the haunting lyrics of “Jolene” by Dolly Parton.
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I’m begging of you please don’t take my man
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Please don’t take him just because you can
Your beauty is beyond compare
With flaming locks of auburn hair
With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green
Your smile is like a breath of spring
Your voice is soft like summer rain
And I cannot compete with you
Jolene
He talks about you in his sleep
And there’s nothing I can do to keep
From crying when he calls your name
Jolene
And I can easily understand
How you could easily take my man
But you don’t know what he means to me
Jolene
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I’m begging of you please don’t take my man
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Please don’t take him just because you can
You could have your choice of men
But I could never love again
He’s the only one for me
Jolene
I had to have this talk with you
My happiness depends on you
And whatever you decide to do
Jolene
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I’m begging of you please don’t take my man
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Please don’t take him even though you can
Jolene, Jolene
Before the end of the song, the camera switched to the riveting documentary on 99-year-old Judy Parsons of the United States who was a navy Code-breaker during the Second World War (1939 to 1945):
“Judy Parsons is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother who worked as a codebreaker for the US Navy during World War II.
One of those all time great women is Judy Parsons, a 99-year-old former Navy lieutenant and school teacher now living in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.
“There’s a bit of a misnomer, in that Bletchley Park is often discussed as the primary center where German codes and ciphers were being broken down,” said Cmrd. David Kohnen, a historian at the Naval War College. “In fact, after 1943, most of that work was being done in Washington, DC, at Nebraska Avenue by WAVES like Judy.”
Today, Parsons is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.
But back in 1942, she was a recent graduate of the Carnegie Institute of Technology — now Carnegie Mellon University — eager to do her part to help the country.
Sexism is still a very real impediment facing women in workplaces of all kinds — including the military — and many of the barriers blocking women from pursuing their careers stood even taller at the time of WWII.
While women played critical roles to support US Armed Forces and keep the economy humming in World War I, World War II was a game changer for women in military service.
In the summer of 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Navy Women’s Reserve Act, creating a new division of the US Navy known as the WAVES — Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service — and clearing a path for women to play a larger role in the Navy than ever before.
After graduation, Parsons — who went by her maiden name Potter at the time — took a job with the Army’s Ordnance Department, where she worked to supply US forces with ammunition.
But one day, something in the newspaper caught her eye: The Navy was accepting women volunteers to attend its officer training school.
“That appealed to me a great deal, so I applied and I was accepted,” Parsons said.
After completing her officer training in 1943, Parsons was sent to Washington, where she was brought to a seminary campus on Nebraska Avenue that the Navy had converted into a military intelligence headquarters.
When she arrived, Parsons and the other WAVES were asked a series of questions to determine their next assignment.
“We were shuffled into the chapel and someone came in there and said ‘Does anyone know German?'” said Parsons. “And I said, ‘Well, I took two years in high school.'”
That was apparently all the Navy needed to hear.
Parsons was assigned to OP-20-G, a codebreaking division within the Navy’s Office of Communications focused on unraveling encrypted messages sent by German forces.
The work she was assigned to was top-secret.
And from the start, it was impressed on her and the other WAVES of OP-20-G that they’d be “hung at the gallows” if they ever spoke about what their job entailed, Parsons said.
It’s a promise she says she kept for decades — never once discussing the work she did with her roommates, friends, or even her husband, until discovering in the 1990s that it had been declassified.
WAVES during WWII are shown at the Naval Communications Annex on Nebraska Avenue in Washington working with a Bombe machine. Intercepted German messages were run through the massive machines, allowing analysts to eventually break the code and decipher the message.
Parsons said people assumed she was working as a glorified secretary. Not being able to tell them otherwise was difficult.
“They’d say ‘What do you do?’ and I’d say, ‘Well, I have a desk job.’ And they’d say, ‘Well, that’s what we thought women would get.’ And that was hard because I couldn’t talk about it.”
Still, Parsons felt that keeping quiet helped dispel at least some of the myths that had been used to keep women from serving their country.
“The top bananas said that women couldn’t keep a secret, and we showed them that we could.”
