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- Description:
- Laura Jacquelin "Jackie" Coggin talks about her youth in Georgia and Florida, her education and her 20 years in the Army Nurse Corps. Coggin says that she first graduated from the Macon Hospital School of Nursing in 1953, later earned a a bachelor's degree in nursing education administration and then a master's degree from the University of Alabama in 1963. She says that in 1965, while teaching at University of Southwestern Louisiana, an Army recruiter talked her into joining the Army Nurse Corps as a way of financing a trip to Europe. She talks about her first duty stations and says that she decided to extend her enlistment because she liked the way the Army moved her around. She also talks about living and working in Hawaii and Germany and traveling throughout Europe and says that the military changed the way she thought about peoples' motives and points of view and that she learned to look at problems much differently. Coggin is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-03-26T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Colonel Erna H. "Tommy" Thompson (nee Schmidt) talks about her youth in Ada, Minnesota, her education and her long career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. After nursing school at St. Johns Hospital in St. Paul, MN and additional course work at the University of Chicago, and after receiving advice directly from Eleanor Roosevelt, Thompson enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. While her husband, who was also in the Army, was sent to Europe, Thompson says that in 1942 she was sent to Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Thompson talks about working at front line aid stations on Guam in the Mariana Islands, Enewetak Atoll, and Iwo Jima and says that she did not like being required to give transfusions from scarce blood supplies to Japanese casualties and was upset that her personal mail was censored. Thompson says she was discharged from the Army in December 1945, went back to active duty in 1948 and worked in hospitals at Fort Sam Houston and in Chicago and then in 1955, resigned from active duty and went into teaching. She says that in 1957 she went back into active duty and served in Hawaii, Fort Bragg, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Berlin and finally retired from the Army in September 1969. Thompson also talks about the tension between practicing nursing and teaching nursing and describes her retirement activities. Thompson is interviewed by Wilda Smith.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project