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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:
- 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:
- Retired Air Force Colonel Crescentia "Cris" Wellman relfects on her childhood, education and her long career as a U.S. Air Force flight nurse. After growing up in rural Iowa and earning her nursing degree at St. Francis Nursing School in Peoria, IL, Wellman says that she enlisted as an Air Force nurse in May of 1953 and was first assigned to Eielson AFB in Alaska. She goes on to discuss her work at various duty stations throughout her career, including stints in California, Oklahoma, Washington, Florida, Illinois, Texas, England, Germany and Okinawa. She describes the duties of a flight nurse and treating burn victims on Air-Evac runs. She also talks about working with Vietnam battlefield casualties and G.I. drug addicts while based on Okinawa. She says she finally retired from the Air Force on July 1, 1981. Wellman is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-04-06T00:00:00Z
- 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
- Description:
- Marguerite Noutary, the daughter of immigrant parents, talks about her childhood and her career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, including her service in World War II. Noutary talks about joining the Army in 1940 and being sent to the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations after the start of the war. She describes her duty stations in Calcutta and Myitkyina, Burma, the dust of the Burma Road, the food, the climate, rampant malaria, flying over "The Hump" into China in a transport plane with Japanese prisoners, the start of the Chinese civil war after the Japanese surrender and treating American POWs who were survivors of the Doolittle Raid. Noutary says that she decided to join the Army Reserve after leaving the regular Army and was called-up for active duty in October 1961 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Vivian Peterson introduces and concludes the recording.
- Date Issued:
- 1990-03-03T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project