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- Description:
- Retired Colonel Patricia Silvestre talks about her personal history and education and her career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps which included service in the Vietnam War. Silvestre says she was running short of money for nursing school when she discovered the Army Student Nurse Program and enlisted in 1956. She talks about finishing her classes, doing basic training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and then driving to her first assignment at Fort Lewis in Washington. She says that her first overseas assignment was in Korea as head nurse on an orthopedic ward and she describes the living conditions, her clothing, the weather and her social life, and says that she believes that hospital staff was really able to help the Koreans. After Officer's Candidate School, Silvestre says that she was sent to Vietnam as a chief nurse and was stationed at a children's hospital near the DMZ where she dealt with a great variety of tropical diseases and war related wounds. Silvestre says that she ended her career at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver in 1984 after serving at various Army operations around the United States. She says that her experience in Vietnam changed the way she thinks of war because she witnessed its terrible consequences. Silvestre is interviewed by Ruth Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-22T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- 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 Lieutenant Colonel Jean Schiffman talks about her career in the Army Nurse Corp beginning in 1949 and her service in a MASH unit during the Korean War. Schiffman says she grew up in Philadelphia, worked as an RN before enlisting in the Army and took basic training at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, and advanced training at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. In Korea, Schiffman says that she served with the 8063 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital and talks about "in-country" living conditions, her duties and the advance medical procedures hospital staff were able to perform under very primitive conditons. After her one year tour of duty in Korea, she says that she decided to stay in the Army and was stationed at bases and hospitals in the U.S., Germany and Japan and that she finally retired in 1970 while serving at Fort Benning in Georgia. Schiffman is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart assisted by Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Hazel Percival talks about her twenty-three year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and says that she enlisted because it was the "thing to do" and that there was talk of nurses being drafted. She says she was first sent to Europe in 1943 and after World War II, to duty stations in several stateside hospitals as well as in Panama and South Korea. Percival shares memories of living in tents and Quonset huts, the ship convoy that took her to Scotland via Iceland and her first assignment in southern England, and says that her greatest adjustment to military life was getting used to having people around all of the time. Percival is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-05-26T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Marcia Baer Larsen, who studied art history and ceramics at the Rhode Island School of Design, talks about using her training while working at foreign postings for the federal government, including service in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. After graduating in 1964, Larsen says that she was hired by the Defense Department as a civilian Supervisory Recreation Specialist in the Special Services unit and was sent to Korea to run craft, recreation, and education programs for American troops at an R&R center and also led tours of ancient Korean kiln sites. Larsen says that she was in Korea until 1968 and after two years back in the States was sent to Thailand as administrator of all in-country recreation facilities, including golf courses and recreation centers. Larsen talks about closing centers in Vietnam and Thailand and turning the facilities and equipment over to local government and tells a story of taking an unauthorized flight with a CIA unit into Phenom Phen, Cambodia and initially being refused permission to leave. Larsen says that she left Special Services when she married and later became Director of the Southwest Craft Center. Larsen is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-02-06T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Colonel Edythe Jean Hathaway talks about her long career in the Army Nurse Corps, including service in World War II, occupied Japan and in the Korean War. Hathaway says that she grew up in Joplin, Missouri, graduated from nursing school in 1944, enlisted in Army in February 1945 and later volunteered for overseas duty. She says that she was shipped to the Philippines in August 1945, just as the war was ending and was soon sent to Japan to help set up a hospital where American and Allied POWS were treated and prepared for shipment back home and later worked at a hospital in Kyoto where she treated victims of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. Hathaway was shipped back to the States in 1946 and after marrying and divorcing, says that she volunteered for duty in Korea in 1950 and worked at a hospital in Pusan and at the 64th Field Hospital which was located on a prison island. Hathaway describes her many duty stations after Korea, in both the U.S. and abroad. She also discusses her retirement activities. Hathaway is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-02-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project