A Medal for Dorothy

In the past seven years, brisk, blue-eyed Dorothy Troxel has hardly been out of Washington, D.C. But as an employee of the U.S. Army Map Service, she has had her own way of getting around. In 1946, for instance, her office put her to work on a new map of Mongolia--and Dorothy Troxel has scarcely thought of anything but Mongolia since.

She became fascinated with the country's place-names. Each one, she found, was really a description--from Mogoito, meaning "Having Snakes," to Dorbon Modo ("Four Trees") and Ulyaasutai ("Having Aspens"). But when Mapmaker Troxel decided that she wanted to increase her vocabulary further, she ran into a block: no one had ever bothered to com pile an English-Mongolian dictionary.

One night in her one-room apartment, Dorothy Troxel began poring over every scrap of text she could find of the Khalkha (spoken Mongolian) language. Then she borrowed foreign dictionaries, badgered professors, gradually lined one whole wall with her card files. As the months passed, working only after office hours far into the night, she fought her way through Khalkha's complicated agglutinations (e.g., "em" means medicine, "emch" doctor, "emchlekh" to treat), mastered its declensions and conjugations, fought the battle from A (to abandon--"khayakh") to Z (zoology--"adguusny aimgiig shimjlekh ukhaan"). After five years, Translator Troxel's work was done. One morning, she bundled up her manuscripts, bustled down to her office, and presented her work to the U.S. Army as a gift.

Last week, with the first English-Mongolian dictionary safely in print, Army Secretary Robert Stevens summoned Miss Troxel to his office. There he stood her in front of the great desk of William Howard Taft, and while three generals looked on, he read her a personal message from Defense Secretary Wilson. As a reward for her work, said Mr. Stevens, Mr. Wilson was giving her a three-step in-grade promotion, which would add about $400 a year to her $5,060 salary. But that was not all. From a little box, Stevens took out a medal and pinned it on Dorothy Troxel's blue dress. It was the Exceptional Civilian Service Award--the highest honor a grateful Army can pay to Dorothy Troxel's "unselfish patriotism" and "distinctive service beyond the call of duty."

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