News Photo by Diane Speer Jackie Bye, of Alpena, who turns 96 in January, displays the hat and jacket of the U.S. WAVES uniform she wore more than 75 years ago while serving her country during World War II. Behind her on the couch is a “quilt of honor” made for her in recognition of that service.

The mint-condition military uniform still hangs in Jackie Bye’s closet, though she pulled it out for church one Sunday not too long ago.

Seventy-five years after she first wore it, the navy blue jacket and skirt still fit.

“It does fit, but there’s a lot of gray hair under that little hat,” said Jackie, a longtime Alpena resident. “It looked really nice, except for that.”

At age 95, Jackie still vividly recalls where she was on Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and launched the U.S. into World War II.

“I was at a sorority party on a Sunday evening, when a waitress came over and urged us to turn on the radio. War had been declared and President Roosevelt was speaking,” said Jackie a native of Philadelphia, Pa.

With a father employed by the U.S. Navy, the then-19-year-old knew immediately what she wanted to do.

“The next day, I had to go to work, but after work was over, I went to the office where they were signing men up,” she said. “They told me I was too young and to wait until the next month, when I turned 20.”

‘I HAD TO DO SOMETHING’

It was two and a half more years before circumstances aligned and she was able join the WAVES, the women’s branch of the U.S. Naval Reserve. Her two brothers also entered the Navy, with one sent to the European theater and the other to the Philippines.

“I didn’t do anything real exciting, but I just felt I had to do something at the time,” Jackie said.

She ended up in Washington, D.C., for the next few years, pulling kitchen duty and tending the women’s brig on base.

“I wanted to be a nurse, but you didn’t always get what you wanted,” she said. “You went where they needed you.”

About a year into her service, Jackie met the love of her life, fellow serviceman Earl Bye. She can still recount how down-in-the-dumps she felt facing her first Christmas away from her family. Her girlfriends urged her to attend a Christmas dance in an effort to cheer her up.

“They insisted. They wore me down,” she said, adding that, when she arrived at the mess hall for the dance, she found it brimming with soldiers. “All my friends were looking at this one sailor. ‘Isn’t he handsome?’ they asked me. He was just so handsome.”

She and the handsome sailor officially met over a misadventure with some spilled punch. After helping her to clean up the spill, Earl offered to walk her most of the way back to her barracks in time for her to report for midnight duty. She agreed to go out on a date with him the next day, but she said a severe ice storm struck D.C. and derailed those plans.

“He couldn’t get off his base. He called, though, and let me know the next time I was off duty, we would go out,” Jackie said. “But then I didn’t hear from him, so I thought, it was just a nice time we spent together and I forgot about him.”

‘TOLD YOU I WAS GOING TO KEEP THAT DATE’

Six months later, Jackie received a V-mail from Earl in which he apologized for not calling because he’d been shipped overseas. She said that, from that point on, they started exchanging newsy letters.

“A year and a half later, I’d just crawled into bed after being on duty all night when I got a call from Earl, who was three blocks away. He said, ‘I told you I was going to keep that date.’ Suddenly, I wasn’t tired anymore,” Jackie said.

The two shared breakfast, lunch and dinner that day before she had to return to duty. The next day, they picked right up where they’d left off. Earl only had a short time in D.C. before heading to his home in Sault Ste. Marie to visit his parents and then shipping out to his next assigned location. Even so, he managed to pop the question.

“He asked me to marry him and I told him I couldn’t, because I didn’t know him,” said Jackie, adding that she relented a few months later after deciding Earl was the one.

Shortly before the war ended, she secured a 30-day leave and took the train cross-country to the base in California where Earl was stationed. It was a five-day journey getting there and back. On their wedding day, July 21, 1945, she donned the same now-75-year-old WAVES uniform that remains a prized possession.

Not only does it remind Jackie of her service to her country, she said, but also the day she married her husband.

‘A LOT OF HAPPY TIMES’

Three months after the war ended, both were honorably discharged and began their post-military life together. Taking advantage of the G.I. bill, they earned four-year teaching degrees from Northern Michigan University. They also started their family, although, all these years later, Jackie still remembers the sorrow of losing their first son, who died at childbirth.

They went onto to become parents of three more sons and a daughter.

Ultimately, the couple settled in Alpena and Earl taught school for 48 years, mostly at Alpena High School. After their children entered school, Jackie also joined the teaching workforce.

Earl has been deceased for a number of years, now, and she still misses him terribly, she said. They also lost one of their adult sons to cancer.

“There have been a lot of happy times and some sad times, too,” said Jackie, who remains active, even at age 95, including volunteering once a week at MidMichigan Medical Center – Alpena, attending local concerts and sharing meals at the Alpena Senior Citizens Center.

Looking back, she counts it a high point in her life to have taken part in a 2015 Honor Flight. The flights are offered through a nonprofit program that flies U.S. military veterans from around the country to Washington, D.C., to see the memorials of the respective wars in which they fought. She made the trip with 12 other World War II veterans, all male.

“I’d seen all the monuments before, all except the one with all the states in a circle,” Jackie said. “There was a platoon of young marines all in a group. Right behind was the rising flag over Iwo Jima. I started to cry, and, even now, it gets to me.”

As she put the plastic cover back on her uniform for safe-keeping and stashed it again in her closet, Jackie reflected on its long-standing significance to her.

“It really means a lot to me that after all these years it’s still in perfect condition,” she said.

Diane Speer can be reached at dspeer@thealpenanews.com or 989-358-5691. Follow Diane on Twitter @ds_alpenanews.