Jane Jewell jokes that Bob Dole probably saw her smiling face while in Italy during World War II. She was on the cover of the Stars and Stripes Mediterranean Easter Sunday magazine supplement in 1945.

“I’d like to say I was so beautiful they picked me out,” she said. “But that’s not true. I just fell into it.”

Jewell, of Baldwin, was a switchboard operator during the war, and because operators had to work nights, she said, they did not have to go on weekend marches with the rest of the company. A photographer from the military newspaper came one weekend, and Jewell said she happened to be there at the time for the picture.

That picture will not be on the Dole Institute of Politics’ Memory Wall during dedication events for the Institute. The events begin Saturday. Jewell, like more than a thousand other veterans, was told the wall was full and she would not be able to make a contribution.

Jewell said she had wanted to put the picture on the wall to help people remember the part women played in World War II.

The Fort Worth, Texas, native joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, later simply Women’s Army Corps, in June 1943 in Dallas at the age of 21. She went to boot camp with the 175th WAC Company at Fort Devens near Harvard, Mass.

Jewell said she joined the Army because her father had instilled in her a great feeling of patriotism.

“You just felt like you had to do it,” she said.

She joined WAC because it would give her a chance to go overseas. After a few days in Casablanca, Morocco, her company arrived at its first overseas duty in Algiers, Algeria, in November 1943, working for headquarters of the 12th Air Force Service Command.

Jane Jewell's billet was bombed during World War II when she was stationed as a switchboard operator in Italy. Jewell, of Baldwin, holds a military newspaper with her photo at the top right of the front page. She said she was looking forward to the upcoming Dole Institute of Politics dedication.

In February 1944, the company moved to Naples, Italy, where Jewell came her closest to combat. In April 1944, Germans bombed the company’s billet. Most of the women were at a dance at the time of the bombing, and no one was injured.

Jewell stayed in Italy until she had earned enough overseas points to return home in October 1945. She said seeing her home country again after two years overseas was something she would never forget.

“The biggest thrill was coming into New York at dusk and seeing the Statue of Liberty with all the lights,” she said. “That really got to me.”