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She had several other posts, including two at Okinawa, Japan, before returning to Lejeune in 1996. Along the way, she married, divorced and married again, to Shannon Pitchford, a Marine and the father of her two sons and two daughters. And she became the kind of gunnery sergeant whose troops still call, years later, to share their successes.

Abby, Pitchford's eldest daughter, followed her parents into the Marines and is now stationed at Camp Pendleton. As a child, Abby says, she couldn't understand why her mom was always too busy for school picnics and roller-skating field trips, or why the Pitchford kids had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to be dropped off at a baby sitter's so Mom could get to P.T.

With five years of service behind her, she sees it now, she says.

"As a female Marine, I absolutely idolize my mother," Abby says. "I don't think she'll ever grasp the concept that I would not be where I am today, I wouldn't have the respect as a female Marine today, I wouldn't have the opportunities I do today, without female Marines like her."

Pitchford, who served only in peacetime, says Abby has done more already than she did in 20 years. She confesses to some jealousy that Abby has served two tours in Iraq and will return in January.

Retiring after 20 years of service, Pitchford took a job with the local chamber of commerce as coordinator of military affairs and special events. The relationships she built in that job were critical to her success in the next one, taking over the operations of the Jacksonville USO.

The USO's heyday

The center, built on the bank of the New River in 1942, is the oldest surviving USO built with federal money. It dates from the origins of the United Service Organization, a federation of six civilian charities that aided Allied Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I. USO history says that on the eve of America's entry into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the same six agencies to unite and provide recreation for the troops and boost morale.

USO centers went up around the world and throughout the U.S. where troops were based or traveled. At the height of the war, with 12 million people in the armed forces, the USO had 3,035 centers where service members could rest while in transit, and single members could dance with local girls who arrived by the bus-load on weekend nights. The USO also sponsored tours by entertainers such as Bob Hope.

Many centers closed after the war. When Pitchford joined the USO in 2002, all that was left of the organization in North Carolina was the beat-up building in Jacksonville and $40,000 in debt.

"Look. I need some help," Pitchford would say when she called people around town. In 2004, Raleigh-Durham International Airport donated space for a USO center upstairs in Terminal A. Now 2,000 men and women each year have a place to drop their gear, get a free meal and, if necessary, spend the night waiting for a plane to their next post.

Four dozen service members come through Wednesday morning from California with just enough time to change into their uniforms and catch their ride out.

The USO at Charlotte's Douglas International Airport, which opened last year, serves 5,000 a month. The three centers are self-supporting and operate on less than $900,000 a year.

The director of the center at RDU, Tom Byrne, who spent 22 years in the Air Force, likes his boss's forthright style and her clarity of vision for the USO.

"She hires us," Byrne says of the many veterans who work or volunteer for the USO, "because we'll tell you your dog's ugly."

Pitchford says today's USO serves two vital functions: as a safe haven for service members, and as a way for civilians to support those in uniform, whether it is giving time to stuff "Iraq Packs" of goodies for departing soldiers, or writing a check for comfortable linens at the wounded-warrior barracks.

"The mission isn't going away," she says. "The military isn't going away."

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