Coast Guard Veteran Finds Pride in Her Service Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. × Search search POPULAR SEARCHES SUGGESTED LINKS Join AARP for just $9 per year when you sign up for a 5-year term. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Leaving AARP.org Website You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.

Decades Later Coast Guard SPARs Veteran Finds Pride in Her Service

75-year-old reservist was one of the few women to serve with Coast Guard during Vietnam War

incamerastock / Alamy Stock Photo / Courtesy Diane Wagener especially as nurses, since as early as the Revolutionary War. ​ Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Opportunities for women to serve remained limited until World War II , however, when the number of men fighting overseas left a huge void that needed to be filled. ​​ Military leaders turned to women to step into some noncombat roles. In all, 350,000 American women served in uniform during World War II. This shift culminated in the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act , signed on June 12, 1948, which allowed women to serve officially in all four branches of the armed forces.​​ Within the Coast Guard, more than 10,000 women volunteered during World War II for the Women’s Reserve, also known as the SPARs , which stood for “Semper Paratus — Always Ready . ” But like most women’s units at the time, the SPARs were not intended to be a permanent branch of the military and were deactivated soon after the war ended.​

The second wave of SPARs​​

However, the SPARs were activated again amid the Vietnam War, but recruited only 75 women. ​​ Diane Haston Wagener enlisted in the SPARs in 1965 after her mother mentioned seeing the opportunity on TV. Her tenure would include one year of active duty followed by two years in the active reserves , which meant she would work on the weekends outside of her regular job.​​“There weren’t a lot of jobs open to women back then. And I wanted to attend college, but there was no local college in a small town in Nebraska,” she said. “My parents just did not have the money at that time to send me to college.”​ At boot camp, Wagener said, she didn’t have to shoot a weapon but experienced routine marches while getting yelled at and had to line up for count offs while making sure her uniform was pressed and properly worn. ​ “It didn’t bother me. Some young women got homesick. It was their first time away from their parents,” she said. “I remember in the barracks at night, I’d hear all this sniffling, young women crying and everything.”​ After completing basic training, women were given the option of serving either as a yeoman, completing administrative duties, or as a storekeeper onshore in the Coast Guard's district office of their choice. AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. opening at Arlington National Cemetery.​ Flowers & Gifts 25% off sitewide and 30% off select items See more Flowers & Gifts offers > For her, the site is one of the few military veteran spaces where she feels comfortable talking with other service members.​ “I hate to say this, but places like the VFW where male veterans go and talk about war stories and drink, that’s not a place I’d ever want to go to. In my experience the hardest thing I did was go to boot cam p,” she said.​​Had the option been available, Wagener would have preferred to have served on a cutter vessel or an airplane, she said , " but not as a pilot."​ “I really thought my service was not helping the U.S. I mean, I really didn’t have much pride in it because I felt like I really hadn’t done anything. But actually, we did; we were paving the way for other women to be able to do all the occupations in the military. But, we didn’t know that then.”​ ​ In early June Wagener returned to the Washington, D .C., area to visit the newly renovated Military Women’s Memorial, and was among the first to see it since it reopened to the public. ​​She also attended the induction of the new Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Linda Fagan, the first wom an to lead the Coast Guard or any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. Today, of the nearly 40,000 active-duty service members in the Coast Guard, more than 5,800 are women. ​​“I had been waiting for this for a long time,” Wagener said. “I didn’t think it was going to take 50 years or more.” MORE FROM AARP AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. AARP VALUE & MEMBER BENEFITS See more Magazines & Resources offers > See more Home & Real Estate offers > See more Events offers > See more Health & Wellness offers > SAVE MONEY WITH THESE LIMITED-TIME OFFERS