READING Pa. – The names of two local heroes are now forever memorialized here at Freedom Path in Reading City Park.<\/p>\n
A way to honor the legacy of some of the first woman to serve the united states army.\u2002\u2002\u2002<\/p>\n
“You know, they’re heroes. They’re really heroes,” said Sharon Holtez, the niece of Private Phyllis Long Green, one of the two women being honored.<\/p>\n
Private Phyllis Long Green and Private Jesse Godbolte Carter both served in WWII in the Central Postal Directory Battalion nicknamed “Six Triple Eight.”<\/p>\n
A historic all-Black and multi-ethnic unit of the U.S. Women’s Army Corps.<\/p>\n
“These women of color, 855 of them…. led the charge, paved the way,” said Shanda Boyd, a veteran who spoke at the ceremony.<\/p>\n
The Six Triple Eight were tasked with sorting through millions of pieces of backlogged mail in Europe.<\/p>\n
They worked around the clock, in three eight-hour shifts processing around 65,000 pieces of mail each, and finished a six-month task in three.<\/p>\n
“What people didn’t realize was that mail was the connection of the soldiers back to their families in the U.S. It created or lifted the morale not only for the soldiers, but the citizens in the U.S.,” explained Wynton Butler, The president of The Reading Branch of NAACP.<\/p>\n
Sharon Holtez. the niece of Green, says it’s an honor to see her aunt being remembered, and hopes the next generation can learn from their legacies.<\/p>\n
“I hope they realize that these women, they made a sacrifice. You know, things were bad for them. There was segregation, they were treated badly, but yet they did their best,” said Holtez.<\/p>\n
Melissa Godbolt, the great niece of Carter is in active service herself.<\/p>\n
She says honoring their memory was long overdue.<\/p>\n
“It’s amazing to recognize, you know, the heritage we come from and how strong we are and how important it is that we also serve our community,” said Godbolt.<\/p>\n
And now, these bricks will now be the permanent reminders of those who helped build the foundation for women in the military.<\/p>\n
\nCopyright 2026 Maranatha Broadcasting Co., Inc.. All Rights Reserved.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING Pa. – The names of two local heroes are now forever memorialized here at Freedom Path in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,128,130,129,213],"class_list":["post-323089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}