They are the stories of Rosie the Riveter, WACS, WAVES and SPARS - the women of World War II.

Some stayed stateside, working in factories, raising families and tilling Victory gardens.

Others enlisted.

From 1941 until the end of the war in 1945, more than 350,000 women joined the American military. They didn't see combat, but they cared for the wounded, transported the living and the dead, and did the ubiquitous paperwork that even a war requires.

Many brought their stories home.

Driven

Eighty-year-old Garnet Brickey of Martinez remembers being angry about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She was at home in Columbus, Ohio, when she heard the news. She dropped out of welding school and enlisted with the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps.

Garnet Brickey (left) tosses a ball to Dorothy Ouzts at Kentwood Nursing Home. Ms. Brickey served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II. CHRIS THELEN/STAFF

''I immediately became patriotic,'' said Mrs. Brickey, who had two brothers in the Army.

She enlisted in January 1943, and went to basic training in Florida and army administrative school in Texas. Mrs. Brickey was then transferred to Fort Deven in Massachusetts, where she became an acting drill sergeant, taking a squad of 10 women through basic training.

''I found it very boring. I sat on the ground and hunted four-leaf clovers,'' she recalled.

Her lieutenant asked what she wanted to do.

Mrs. Brickey said she wanted to drive.

So she was sent to Fort Deven's motor transport school, where she was taught the basic mechanics of vehicles and learned to drive 1 1/2 ton trucks and ambulances.

Driving the large trucks was ''cake,'' Mrs. Brickey said. She also drove ambulances to pick up wounded soldiers who were arriving on trains.

''They were all amazed to see women driving ambulances,'' she said proudly.

Seven months into her service, when women were given official status in the military, she was sworn in to the Women's Army Corps as a private first class at Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania.

Although Mrs. Brickey said she never felt threatened by men in the service, she knew some didn't like that the ''soft jobs'' were being taken by women. Once, while stationed in Pennsylvania, she was approached by a male soldier who said they needed to talk.

Instead of talking, he taunted her.

''I just stood there and didn't say anything. He said I thought I was too good for him,'' she said. ''His buddies finally dragged him away. That was the only incident I had.''

She said she has no regrets about her military service.

''I had the best time of my life when I was in the service,'' she said. ''I had the idea of helping America, doing what I could do.''

Doing her Duty

Enlisting in the military almost cost Joan Templeton her life.

The British native's closest call came in Hampshire, England, at H.M.S. Daedalus, a Royal Navy Air Station where she was based. She and her fellow enlistees in WRENS - Women's Royal Navy Service - and several sailors were walking down a country road when they spotted a German plane flying toward them, dropping bombs.

War veteran and WRENS member Joan Templeton displays a map she made and had signed by soldiers while she served at the Royal Navy Air Station in England during World War II. ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER/STAFF

The men dove into a ditch while the women stood and watched.

''Like dummies, we stood and gawked at the plane,'' Mrs. Templeton said.

But the women were lucky.

''All three bombs they dropped were duds.''

Mrs. Templeton, now an Augustan, was vacationing in Northern Ireland when Adolf Hitler advanced into Czechoslovakia in March 1939. When she returned to her home in London, she knew she had to enlist: It was her duty, she said.

Two days after Hitler's troops invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany.

Patriotic fervor ran high in Mrs. Templeton's family, she said. A number of her relatives, including her favorite uncle, were in the Royal Navy - a branch of service highly regarded in her country. She entered as the equivalent of an able seaman and was discharged as a second lieutenant.

''People were very patriotic then. One of my aunts said, 'I'd have been in there already if I'd been you.''' she said.

It was in 1940 that Mrs. Templeton joined WRENS and was sent to H.M.S. Daedalus.

''It all seemed so unreal,'' she said.

WRENS enlistees lived off-base in a seaside hotel converted into a women's naval hostel.

''We always said, 'That's all right. They leave us outside for the Germans to get first!'''

Although Mrs. Templeton, now 84, was never near the front lines, her tenure in the service was fraught with danger from the German bombing raids.

The raids exacted a mental toll; once she got used to them, they would go away, only to return, she said.

''When they started up again, then you'd get the nasty, creepy feelings,'' she recalled.

During air raids, the women were hustled into the basement of the Navy Air Station in Hampshire, the safest place in the building.

But the fear was tempered with some humor. As the women watched, a petty officer would shoot at planes through the top-floor skylight.

''He slapped on his tin hat, shouldered his rifle and dashed up the spiral staircase to take pot shots,'' she said.

When Mrs. Templeton was sent to Bill of Portland in 1941, she was responsible for watching for incoming German planes.

''Here I was, the one to police the skylight to alert the rest of the WRENS when German planes were overhead,'' she said.

However, the war did have a happy ending for Mrs. Templeton. While on duty in London in 1942, working for the British liaison officer to the commander-in-chief of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, she met an American named Richard.

She outranked him and still is teased about that by her children, who say he had to ask permission to marry her. They wed in 1942. Mr. Templeton died in 1963.

''People lately have been being cashiered out of the service for fraternizing with people with lower ranks. They didn't do that then,'' she said with a grin.

She was discharged after the birth of their first son, Roger, in 1942. She moved to Chapel Hill, N.C., from England with her husband, who was still active in the Navy. In 1944, Mr. Templeton brought his family to Augusta - his hometown.

A Nurse's Nightmare

Dorothea McKie's service in the Navy Nurse Corps was a contradiction. She loved what she did, but she will never forget the horrors she witnessed, she said.

''The only part that I didn't like was these young men being torn apart.''

Dorothea McKie, who served in the Navy Nurse Corps, holds a scrapbook filled with photos taken during her yearlong tour of duty in Guam during World War II. She met her husband of 55 years, Cliff, on a ship during their journey home. ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER/STAFF

She heard the news of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor over the radio while she was with a patient in a Nebraska nursing school.

''It was the thing to do, I guess. We were at war, and they were looking for nurses,'' she said. ''My daddy was in the Navy. He was glad I was going.''

Mrs. McKie, 79, was a senior at the nursing school when recruiters came looking for potential enlistees.

She joined in March 1943 and was stationed for a year in both Mare Island and Corona, Calif. She entered the Corps as an ensign and was discharged as a lieutenant junior grade.

In December 1944, she began a yearlong tour of duty in Guam.

There she saw the worst, she said.

American soldiers came to the base hospital in Guam from Iwo Jima and Okinawa mangled by war - some missing arms and legs. Mrs. McKie estimated that most of the soldiers were 17 to 19 years old. She never got to see a soldier recover.

Their job was to stabilize the soldiers so they could be sent to America to recover.

Today, Guam is a resort area, similar to Hawaii. It wasn't then.

''There wasn't much left of Guam. Buildings were in ruins'' from Japanese bombing missions, she said.

Mrs. McKie said there were lighter moments - dances and days at the beach. But she didn't like the weather.

''It rained while the sun was shining. Your clothes and your shoes all mildewed because it was so humid there.''

Living conditions were tight. There were three nurses to a room using bunk beds, she said, and no privacy.

Although Guam had seen most of the war when Mrs. McKie was stationed there, nurses were still escorted off the base.

''The only fear factor was that there were still Japanese snipers,'' she said. ''They killed several of (the snipers) while we were there.''

Whatever resentment the men had toward the nurses quickly vanished, she said.

''Navy corpsmen resented us when we first came. After they found out that we weren't going to upset their apple cart, we got real friendly with them,'' she said. ''I told them I was there, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. The best we could do was try and get along.''

On the journey home, she met her husband, Cliff, an engineering officer on the ship. She asked him whether she could join him in a card game.

They have been married for 55 years. The couple moved between Nebraska and Augusta several times before settling in Augusta.

''We've been playing gin rummy ever since,'' she said.

Reach Rebecca Whitehead at (706) 823-3340.