When I was growing up, it was ordinary for my friends to have fathers who served in World War II. I was a daughter of a veteran, too, but unlike my friends, the veteran was my mother, and she had served in the Women’s Army Corps. The WAC, as it was called, was the component of the Army reserved for women until it was disbanded in 1978 and women were integrated into the regular Army.

My then 21-year-old mother enlisted in 1944 despite her father’s outrage. His opposition mattered less to my mother than her determination to do her patriotic part. She never forgot those two years of her service and through her, none of her six children did either.

Mom is long dead now, an early victim of heart disease in her 50s I, her youngest, have outlived her by a dozen years. But the older I get, the more I appreciate how Mom’s Army years shaped us all in unexpected ways. Here are five gifts her service gave us.

A love of classical music: Mom was stationed at Fort Oglethorpe, in Georgia, and got to know members of the Army Band. They taught her all about classical music. She was a blue-collar kid from South Buffalo, the city’s Irish enclave, and she had no previous exposure to the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and the other classical masters. After her service, our home would never be without classical music playing in the background, even when we lived in low-income housing projects.

A love of adventure: The Army was Mom’s great adventure. She returned home to marriage and the unending work of a large family. But she never forgot criss-crossing the country, serving at four U.S. bases, seeing new places and meeting people of varied backgrounds whom she never would have met otherwise. As a result, she encouraged her children to be open to all of life, to travel, and to push the boundaries of our own experiences.

The potential of education: After her discharge, Mom became the first in her family to enter college under the GI Bill. She enrolled in the University of Buffalo’s Great Books course of studies that required students read the Latin and Greek classics in their original languages. That meant, before there was Google, there was Mom, who was quick to help all of us define words using their Latin or Greek roots. As we grew up, our house was not only filled with books, but we had a Greek language Bible that my mother could crack open and discuss the Scriptures in the context of the nuances of translation. Her education educated us all.

A belief in what women could do: Mom’s Army service made her appreciate the talent and strength of other women. She wasn’t alone; Gen. Douglas MacArthur said that women of the Women’s Army Corps were his “best soldiers.” This belief in women, which my mother saw in the Army, made her a wise and encouraging mother to her four daughters. She pushed all of us to better ourselves and was relentless in encouraging us to pursue a career. And we all did.

Pride: My mother lived to pin officer’s bars on my sister Claudia’s shoulders when she received her commission as an Army second lieutenant. My brother Tim spent 26 years in the Navy Reserve. I never joined the military, but for 17 years volunteered in the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, the only uniformed, civilian component of a branch of the armed forces. The impulse to serve, and to take pride in that service, was deeply ingrained in my mother through her Army service, and she passed it onto us.

In the small cemetery where Mom is buried, her name is included on the World War II roll of honor, her name engraved in a monument. This way she will always be recalled by someone, long after those of us who remember her are gone. And when I walk to her headstone, with its “WWII” engraved above her name, there one more comforting sight. Ever-present before her grave, in the heat of summer or the chill of winter, there is always an American flag, the same flag that she was so happy to have served.

Mom would have been proud.

Maura Casey is a former New York Times editorial writer. Her book, “Saving Ellen: A Memoir of Hope and Recovery,” in which she writes about her mother’s Army service, was released by Skyhorse Publishing this month.