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- 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:
- Elsie Hornbacher talks about her overseas service as a teacher in Japan, Italy and Austria after World War Two. Hornbacher talks about going to Japan in 1949, her ocean voyage to Yokohama, shipboard life, riding out a typhoon, the destruction still evident in postwar Japan, Japanese culture, and how life for the Japanese gradually began to improve. Hornbacher discusses the school where she worked, the curriculum, her students, visiting Hiroshima and about the Korean War and American dependents evacuating from Korea to Japan. Hornbacher says that she was reassigned to Naples in 1952, and that the city was unsafe and controlled by the mafia. After "enduring" a year in Italy, she says that she was next sent to Austria which she found both colorful and interesting and was finally sent back to the U.S. in 1954.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-04-27T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a wide-ranging oral history interview, Margaret Canfield talks about her twenty-four year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and serving in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Canfield says that she graduated from nursing school in 1951 and enlisted in the Army that same year. She talks about her basic training in Texas, her first assignment in Colorado, being sent to Japan in 1953 and treating casualties coming in from Korean battlefields. After the Korean War, she says that she was stationed in Utah and Hawaii and again in Asia and was finally sent to Vietnam in February 1967. Canfield discusses her various duty stations in Vietnam, treating Vietnamese civilians and U.S. and Korean troops and says that after becoming Chief Nurse at the 18th Surgical Hospital in Pleiku, she extended her tour of duty for another year. In December 1967, she says that she was transferred to a hospital in the Mekong Delta in support the 9th Infantry Division and that the hospital was shelled and virtually destroyed during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Canfield says that she returned to the U.S. after twenty-one months in Vietnam and finally retired from the Army in August 1975. Canfield is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-15T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Dorothy Haughton talks about joining the American Red Cross as a secretary in 1943 and in 1948 beginning a twenty year career as a physical therapist in the U.S. Army. She says she became intrigued with physical therapy while working for the Red Cross in a hospital unit and decided to get training and pursue an Army career. She discusses her duty stations, her travels, housing conditions, the Korean conflict, and her uniforms and says that adjusting to military life was easy for her. Haughton is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Johanna Butt talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two and the Korean War. Butt says that she graduated from nursing school in 1943 and joined the Army that same year. She talks about treating wounded from Patton's Third Army in Europe, living in miserable conditions, being cold and not having enough to eat, V-E Day and finally being "separated" from the Army in February in 1946. She says that she was called up from the Army Reserves in 1951 for the Korean War and talks about being stationed in Japan with the 382nd General Hospital, the flood of casualties that came in from the fighting in Korea, returning to the States in 1954, teaching nursing, working as an Army recruiter in the Pacific Northwest and being turned down for service in the Vietnam war. Butt says she retired from the Army in 1970 and moved to Tucson, AZ to care for her mother and husband. Butt is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-14T00:00:00Z
- 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 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
- Description:
- Linden N. Anderson talks about her long career in the American Red Cross which included service in World War Two and the Korean and Vietnam wars. Anderson reminisces about her childhood, attending the University of Texas, teaching in Texas public schools and finally joining the Red Cross in 1943. Anderson talks about her training with the "doughnut dollies", being stationed at the 91st General Hospital, shipping out to England and being stationed in Wales until her unit could be moved to a hospital at Oxford. Anderson says that her job was to provide entertainment for the wounded and build morale and that she often took patients on bus tours throughout England. After V-E Day, Anderson says that she returned to the States, but was soon recalled by the ARC to serve in Japan and in Korea during that conflict. Anderson also says that she remained in the Red Cross for twenty-years after Korea, discusses her duty stations in Libya, Germany, Korea and the U.S., describes treating casualties in Japan during the Vietnam war and finishing her career in Corpus Christi in 1973. Anderson 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