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- Description:
- Mary C. Burnham talks about serving as a dietitian in the U.S. Army Medical Specialist Corps during World War Two and later in occupied Japan and stateside military hospitals, over a twenty-year Army career. Burnham discusses her youth in Milwaukee, her college years, her early work life in Chicago, enlisting in the Army in 1942 soon after Pearl Harbor, training at a base in Texas, shipping out to the Pacific Theater, her initial posting to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands, and her life on the base and her duties as a dietitian. She says that she was later transferred to India and after serving in hospitals there, was sent back to the states via the Middle East and North Africa. During the Korean war, Burnham was again sent overseas and served as part of the U.S. Army of Occupation in Japan. She describes her three years of service in Japan, and says that she was very happy to finally be sent back to the states to serve in a series of military hospitals for the rest of her career. Burnham is interviewed by Jane Piatt.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Patricia Accountius, talks about her nearly thirty years in the U.S. Army Meidcal Specialist Corps, including her service during the Vietnam War. Accountius says that she joined the Army in 1948 and became a dietician after completing an internship program. She discusses her stateside assignments, serving on Okinawa from 1956-1958, being stationed at Walter Reed Army hospital in 1958, earning a graduate degree and finally being sent to Vietnam in 1966 as a captain. She says she spent a great deal of time in Vietnam just trying to get food deliveries made on a regular basis, developing menus for hospitals and dealing with the lack of basic food items. After Vietnam, Accountius became Chief Dietician at Walter Reed Hospital for several years, was later assigned to the Pentagon and was finally sent back to Texas in the 1980s as part of the Panama Command. Accountius is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart and Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a an oral history interview, Mary Duncan Clark talks about her twenty-eight year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. She says that her friends persuaded her to enlist during World War II and that she began as a staff nurse, moved up through the ranks and ended her career as a chief nurse. She discusses her duty stations in the U.S. and overseas, including in Vietnam and describes base housing, her uniforms and her travels. She tells a humorous story of going through customs in an unfriendly country and putting her feminine hygiene products on top in her suit case so that it would not be searched. Clark also says she enjoyed working with an adoption board in Japan to find homes for the illegitimate children of American soldiers and that she decided right after D-Day to make the Army her career. Clark is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-04-26T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Colonel Mary Patricia Laughlin talks about her childhood and education and her service as an U.S. Air Force nurse from 1951 to 1954 and as an Army nurse from 1963 to 1980. Laughlin says she was raised in Omaha and went into nursing because she didn't want to be a "teacher or secretary." After graduating from nursing school in 1946, she says that she worked in Seattle and Denver and other locations around the Midwest, before finally joining the Air Force in 1951, during the Korean War. She left the Air Force in 1954 and after working in various hospitals, joined the U.S Army in 1963 and was sent to Korea. Laughlin describes life and work in Korea and says that she was next sent to Japan and later worked in Seattle, Washington, D.C., Fairbanks, Alaska and Monterey, CA, where she retired in February 1980. Laughlin is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart and Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Harriet Wise talks about her service in the Women's Army Corps during World War Two and in Asia following the war. Wise discusses her postings at various military bases around the United States during the war and being one of the few women sent to the Army Exchange Service School at Princeton University. Following the war, Wise says that she accepted an assignment in Japan and talks about her time in Yokohama and Tokyo and later being sent to Seoul, South Korea to serve as an assistant PX officer. Wise is interviewed by Geneva Kebler Wiskemann and Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-04-20T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Mary Hall talks about her service as an Air Force officer from 1951 to 1956. Hall says that she enlisted in the Air Force as a Second Lieutenant in November 1951 and discusses her duties in the U.S., being sent to Japan in May 1953 as supply officer, and later to Eglin AFB in Florida with the same assignment. She says that while attending Squadron Officers School in Montgomery, AL, as one of five women in a class of 500 men, she met her husband, married him right after the course finished and left the Air Force in 1956 to start a family. After the Air Force, in addition to raising her family, Hall says that she attend graduate school, did volunteer work, sold real estate and after her husband died in 1991, moved to the Air Force Village in San Antonio and married again. Hall is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-18T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired United States Army Major Elsie Smith talks about her career in the Nurse Corps and serving in two wars. Smith says that she was in the Army Reserves for two years before moving to active duty in December 1950 for service in Japan and Korea during the Korean War. She says that she was later sent back to Korea during the Vietnam War, but suffered a heart attack in 1966 and was discharged. She talks about her pay, her uniforms, her duty stations, and her awards, medals and campaign ribbons. She also says that she joined the WOSL in 1980 and currently is a Unit President.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Barbara Pratt-LeMahieu talks about her childhood in Salem, Massachusetts and her career in the U.S. Air Force which included service during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Pratt-LeMahieu says that she enlisted in 1948, took basic and administrative training in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and later worked as secretary for the Strategic Air Command in Colorado Springs and as a secretary at March AFB in California during the Korean War. After officer candidate school, she says that she was commissioned a second lieutenant and served as a public information administrator in Montana, until she volunteered to go to occupied Japan in 1955. In 1967, Pratt-Lemahieu says that she volunteered for service as a personnel services administrator in Vietnam and talks about hearing shelling on her way to work each day and her experiences during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Pratt-Lemahieu is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart and Carol Hapgood. She is assisted in recalling the details of her answers by her husband, Jim LaMahieu.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project