Merle Egan Anderson

[3] She is credited for persisting in the effort to gain the Operators Unit veterans' status, which was eventually signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977.

When the Signal Corps relaxed the bilingual requirement for new women recruits, Egan enlisted[11] and sailed to France with the fifth operators unit in August, 1918[12] on the RMS Aquitania.

[17] In 1972, Charlotte Gyss Terry, who had also been a telephone operator in France, contacted Egan with information about Army reserve officers who had been sent to Russia in World War I to keep the railways open, but on return in 1920 were told that they had been civilians.

When their petitions to Congress were denied, the reserve officers filed a lawsuit, and a federal court ruled in their favor in March, 1971.

In May 1977, the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs heard evidence from Hough, including statements from Egan and other surviving telephone operators.

Hough pointed out the costs of the Russian Railway Service Corps case, which the Army had lost on appeal, with the circuit court finding "Members of the Corps wore regulation Army officer' uniforms and insignia" and that "...the wearing of such uniforms and insignia by non-military personnel is prohibited by law.

Egan received her official discharge papers in a ceremony at Fort Lawton, Washington, on August 28, 1979, at age 91.