Jean "Marian" Alva Yancey Landry has nearly always been known as Marian Y. Landry with the Y representing her maiden name. She was born in December 1919 in Davenport, Iowa. Her father was a college professor but died six years after her birth. Landry's mother moved and took on a job in nursing in Tampa, Florida. The family moved to Houma, Louisiana after a few years. They made the final move to Lafayette [Annotator's Note: Lafayette, Louisiana] so that her mother could achieve her post-graduate diploma. Landry remembers her father's funeral. She worked with clerical skills after graduating high school. She subsequently joined the Marine Corps. She selected the Marine Corps after the branch decided to let women enlist. She did not like the prospects of staying at home since her boyfriend had been drafted and left their hometown for the service. He had been in the service for a year when the bombs were dropped on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. All the other boys were leaving so she decided to go with the Marines. She was one of the first females to join in 1943.

Jean "Marian" Alva Yancey Landry first went to the Marine recruiter to merely find out what was involved with becoming a Marine. The recruiters did everything they could to talk her into becoming a Marine. She retrieved her birth certificate and was sworn in the next day. Some of the enlistees had to eat bananas and drink water to make the necessary weight. The Marines were using the Navy boot camp at Hunter College [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York] because the Marine Corps was not ready to take on female enlistees when she entered. After four or five weeks of training, they were assigned to duty immediately. Some women did not even have uniforms at that time. The women had been trained in close order drill by male instructors. The DI's [Annotator's Note: Drill Instructors] did not seem happy with the daily training of females. The weather was cold in February [Annotator's Note: February 1943]. The women saw an M1 rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] but never touched one. She was comfortable with swimming but did not like coming out of the building in the cold with a wet head. The training was not hard. The women lived in apartments off campus. Smokers had to confine themselves to the one room allocated for them to do so. There was a lot of second hand smoke in the room. There were 722 trainees in the first class. Of those, 240 went to headquarters with the remaining being distributed to other responsibilities. Her friend, Frances, was trained to run a mess hall for large numbers of meals prepared each day. Frances was sent to El Toro [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Air Station El Toro near Irvine, California] and established a mess hall from the ground up. Other girls did lots of different jobs but not like today's women in the Marine Corps. Nevertheless, Landry and her colleagues broke the barrier on female entry into the Marine Corps.

Jean "Marian" Alva Yancey Landry went to a huge building where she was assigned to a job with Marine Corps headquarters. She dealt with IBM cards in Marine Corps officer records. She dealt with individuals who were killed in the Pacific, KIA [Annotator's Note: Killed in Action]. There were a lot of men killed but she looked at it as a job. They even made jokes about some of the file contents that she and her coworker reviewed. She processed varying numbers of files from a typed list until she finished. After completing the list, she was free to wander around. After she processed the file, it went to another department. She did not understand the IBM card system and how the cards were processed. She performed that work for two and a half years. She had weekend liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and visited New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] on several occasions. She sometimes stayed with girlfriends and their families while away on leave. She particularly enjoyed her treatment by the Italian family of one of her friends. Visiting New York on Sunday had limitations because some of the buildings or landmarks were closed. Landry missed some opportunities for leave while waiting to obtain her uniform. She was discharged in September 1945 immediately after V-J Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. She was ready to return home after two and a half years even though she enjoyed what she had done during that time.

Jean "Marian" Alva Yancey Landry was glad to return home after the war. Adjustment was no problem as she obtained her old job. She went to work with Shell Oil and then got married. She had a whole new life after marriage. She was not a working wife because she was fully involved in managing her home and her children. She tried part-time work, but it did not work for her and she gave it up. She had three children. After her husband passed, she joined the WMA, Women Marine Association, and the Marine Corps League where she is the only woman in her detachment. She is treated with respect. She in turn respects what those Marines did for the country. Most of those she knows were in the Pacific during World War 2. She is the oldest person in her detachment. Landry is the oldest sibling in her family. She had two brothers in the service during the war. One served in in the Army in Japan on occupation duty where he was stricken with appendicitis and still managed to be best man at his friend's wedding on the day of his surgery. Her other brother joined the Coast Guard and then became an Air Forces flyer with his wings given to him in Pensacola [Annotator's Note: Pensacola, Florida] at the end of the war. All three of the siblings served in different branches of the service. She was at her grandmother's home with her boyfriend who was in uniform when she heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Her boyfriend immediately left for duty for the next four years until the war ended. He served under Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] in the Third Army. He went to officer training and became a real leader. He landed on Utah Beach three weeks after D-Day [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. When the war ended, he visited some of the sites in Europe. Landry never got to those sites. There was little mail between the two of them during the war. He sent Landry a "Dear John" letter [Annotator's Note: a Dear John letter is a letter from a female to a male serviceman serving overseas breaking off a romantic engagement] and that was one of the reasons she joined the Marine Corps. He never said why but she suspects that it was to release her from the responsibility of taking him on if he had a problem from combat. It took five years after the war for them to get back together. He was the man for her. They were married for nearly 50 years when he died.

Jean "Marian" Alva Yancey Landry had a friendship with a future famous photographer, George Tames. Tames went on to photograph President John Kennedy [Annotator's Note: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States]. During her Marine Corps service, she experienced strict regimentation. Duties and chores were required of the women. She only had one uniform and three shirts and a couple ties during that time. She slept in a double bunk and orderliness of the squad room was expected. The women were marched to their work assignments in Washington, D.C. in the morning but after work, they could relax. When they traveled back to the barracks in a bus, everyone loved to sing together. It was fun. Food was edible and inexpensive. It was served in cafeteria fashion. She reached the rank of sergeant and her pay increased to 78 dollars [Annotator's Note: 78 dollars per month]. She stood in line for her pay. She thought of herself as a civilian in uniform except for the regimentation. Arlington Cemetery [Annotator's Note: United States military cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia] was nearby. Women always were in the escorting marchers behind the caisson as it traveled to the grave site. She was too short at five feet four inches to qualify for that duty. She does not remember much about Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] dying even though it was during the war. Maybe she was not granted a break to see the event. Landry was proud to provide her story to The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Some women do not want to do so. It is important for her to discuss her life before and after her marriage. Joining the Marine Corps League had helped her understand Marine Corps events so much better.