Elizabeth Barrett was born in August 1924 at a base hospital in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, but stayed there only two weeks before she and her mother joined her father, who was in the Army, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When she was about two years old, the family moved to Panama, where Barrett's brother was born when she was four. There, Barrett learned to ride the Cavalry's horses. Her father's Army career required the family's regular relocation.

After five or six years in Atlanta, Georgia, Elizabeth Barrett's family was stationed at Fort McKinley, very close to Manila in the Philippines. She was 16, and said it was too bad they didn't stay there long, because although it was hot, it was beautiful, and it was there she met her first husband. She was not yet enrolled for college, but did have a very active social life, and a young man in her father's regiment introduced her to the handsome young man on whom she set her cap. There were signs, however, of the impending dangers, evidenced by the shipments of pig iron traveling through the ports. While on a family outing, her father mentioned to the family that the Lingayen Gulf was what his regiment would be tasked with defending. The war in Europe was her father's "business," and she knew Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was evil, and she thought all Germans, as well as all Japanese, were bad people. She said it took her a long time to realize that they were really lovely people, just under bad leadership. Too soon, after only about four months, the family was evacuated and sent back to the United States. Barrett's new boyfriend flew by the departing ship in an airplane and dropped a bouquet of orchids for her. She didn't see him again for two years.

Elizabeth Barrett found it hard to leave her father behind in the Philippines, and was optimistic about his survival, but the family did not see him again for five years. The family went to Barrett's father's hometown of Fayetteville, and she went to college. Her father's regiment was engaged in the Battle of Bataan, which Barrett said was sad and futile. She feels MacArthur's [Annotator's Note: US Army General Douglas MacArthur] ego was at fault for not properly preparing Bataan with supplies and ammunition to wage that conflict. Barrett said no one she knew liked MacArthur, and that they "didn't call him Dugout Doug for nothin'." When all of the wives and families were sent home, he kept his own household with him, thereby diverting essential resources. Barrett said the MacArthur party spent most of their time in the Tunnel [Annotator's Note: the Malinta Tunnel was an underground complex built on the Island of Corregidor in the Philippines and used as the headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur], hence the nickname. Mail delivery was erratic, and although the Barrett family knew where their father was, they knew nothing about his fate after Bataan fell. He was classified "missing in action" for six months. Meanwhile, Barrett's boyfriend had returned to the United States and they were married in California when she was 18. Her husband, a P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] pilot, returned to the Philippines, and their correspondence became "very slim."

Elizabeth Barrett was at a loss, she said, as to her own husband's whereabouts or well being. When he got back to the United States, he tracked her down, but the two couldn't be reunited for some time. At first, she didn't feel she knew him anymore. Her father's movements were also uncertain, but he kept notebooks, so the family could eventually know the history of his captivity. His family worried constantly. Barrett occupied her time by going to college and joining a sorority. She lived in the sorority house, and said everyone was excited when she got mail. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, members of her school's fraternities went en masse to enlist in the armed services. Barrett called it a "tense time."

Elizabeth Barrett and her mother waited and waited, she said, and propped each other up during the time their husbands were away. When Bataan fell, Barrett's mother and other officer's wives were united in their distress. Her father returned five years later, physically intact. During that time, Barrett's husband did nine-month's duty in England. A picture of the fighter he flew during that tour, with Barrett's name on it, is in the 5th Air Force Museum [Annotator's Note: 8th Air Force Museum] in Savannah, Georgia. Correspondence with her husband while he was in Europe was much better than when he was in the Pacific. In 1948 or 1949, Barrett's husband was stationed in Japan, and she was reluctant to go because of her prejudice against the people. She eventually overcame her difficulties, and said they had a pleasant two-and-a-half years at Johnson Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: now Iruma Air Base in Sayama, Japan] and Yakota Air Force Base in Japan.

On the day North Korea invaded South Korea [Annotator's Note: 25 June 1950], Elizabeth Barrett and her husband were entertaining. He left their company to take a telephone call, and was very serious when he gave Barrett the news. Barrett's husband dug a zig-zag foxhole in their side yard in as a precaution against an attack; luckily his family never had to use it. He was deployed to Korea within a short time after the hostilities began. Later, Seoul City Sue [Annotator's Note: Anna Wallis Suh] made a false radio report that Barrett's husband was missing in action. Barrett said she ignored it. While he was away, Barrett occupied herself with work at the blood bank, folding bandages and other volunteer projects. Her husband was able to telephone, and Barrett remembers his one request was for warm sleepwear. Barrett said she took everything as it came; she didn't like being involved in another war, but couldn't help it. When he returned, the family was stationed at Marshall Field, near Fort Riley, Kansas, and Barrett said the airmen were not taken seriously there. However, when General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] visited in August 1945, he took special interest in speaking with Barrett's husband about what was going on in the Asian Theater.

Elizabeth Barrett and her husband had five children during his military career. The couple lived at Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile, Alabama, which Barrett called the ugliest base she had ever seen. The base was closed for political reasons, according to Barrett, and rather than taking a post at the Pentagon, her husband retired in 1965. For a while he worked for Boeing in Huntsville. Barrett doesn't think he suffered any psychological difficulty during or after either war. Barrett's second husband was a Marine who served during the Vietnam War. When asked to compare her roles as a military wife during the first and second marriages, she said the Marines were more disciplined that the Air Force personnel. Barrett said her most memorable experience of World War 2 was her father's imprisonment. Her life was changed by meeting her first husband in the Philippines. Asked what World War 2 means to young Americans today, she believes they see it as an unavoidable annoyance, and thinks that institutions like The National WWII Museum can help them to know the real history of that important event.