Mama told me so... tell it to the Marines

Lieutenant Grace Finley taught some of the young marines about to ship out to Iraq in 1943, to help the British in the Near East campaigns, and she packed an instructive booklet away with her keepsakes.

She was one of the college graduate women who, post-Pearl Harbor, signed up for officer training as their patriotic duty to "free a marine to fight."


Her vintage Iraq booklet was stashed in a campaign desk, dating from World War II, along with love letters to her husband, a Marine officer serving in the South Pacific, and old-fashioned box cameras. It was stored away for six decades in her garage.

Today, five years after the US launched its invasion and occupation of Iraq, the common-sense advice to GIs is still pertinent.

World War II-era tips for Iraq duty

We found this historical gem in an old trunk which was crammed with my mother’s World War II keepsakes. As a US Marine lieutenant, Grace Finley taught recruits at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and Quantico, Virginia. Tucked away with her brass-buttoned dress white uniforms was a slim booklet that outlined in 1943 what to expect in Iraq.

A nearly identical WWII booklet for Army personnel was published by the University of Chicago Press in June 2007 as a nostalgic blast from the past.
For today's fighters, there's no need to shell out $10 for this edition, even though it is essential reading, originally paid for by American tax dollars. In memory of Grace Finley, we have scanned the original pages of her booklet and posted them online for everybody who cares about the future of Iraq and the fate of the American servicemen and women serving there.

(Please click on images to enlarge to full-size.)







60 years before the current war started, when British troops guarding strategic Iranian oil resources from the German advance
requested the help of American allies, this GI guide for grunts had timely tips about guerrilla fighters, religious factions, and cultural taboos. Like the familiar place names, they seem just as relevant today. The guide anticipated virtually every problem encountered by troops in the past five years.