Interview of Margaret Easterly Canfield on her twenty-four year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and services in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars

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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

Place:

Texas, Japan, and Vietnam

Subject Topic:

Career in military nursing, Military life, Nurses, Vietnam War, 1961-1975, Veterans, Korean War, 1950-1953, Veterans, Women veterans, Vietnam War, 1961-1975, Korean War, 1950-1953, Vietnam War, 1961-1975, Participation, Female, Korean War, 1950-1953, Participation, Female, Military nursing, Military education, Korean War, 1950-1953, Medical care, Vietnam War, 1961-1975, Medical care, and Tet Offensive, 1968

Subject Name:

Canfield, Margaret Easterly, 1930-, Canfield, Margaret Easterly, 1930-, United States, Army Nurse Corps, United States, and Army

Subject Genre:

Interviews, Interviews, Interviews, Interviews, Interviews, Interviews, Personal narratives, American, and Personal narratives, American

Language:

English

Rights:

In Copyright

URL:

https://n2t.net/ark:/85335/m51q5c