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Career in military nursing
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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:
- 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:
- Janet A. Bachmeyer talks about her thirty-year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps from July 1944 to June 1974. Bachmeyer says she received her nurse's training at the Evangelical School of Nursing in Chicago and worked her way up the ranks in the military from staff nurse to chief nurse before she retired. She talks about her duty stations in Europe during World War II and others in postwar Germany, Korea and in Vietnam. Bachmeyer describes post housing, her uniforms, and her vivid memories of being in London on V-E Day and celebrating all night. Bachmeyer says that she hadn't intended to make the military a career but decided it was right for her after leaving active service for a couple of years. Bachmeyer also talks about her activities in retirement and her feelings about the WOSL. Bachmeyer is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-04-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Alice Pfeiffer talks about her youth in Illinois, her education and her career as an Air Force nurse and administrator. Pfeiffer says that she enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1941, talks about her first duty stations and says that after additional training at Fort Bragg, was sent to England aboard the Queen Mary. Pfeiffer says that she was assigned to the 68th General Hospital which was set up in a cow pasture, worked 12 hour shifts, and lived in very, very basic conditions. After D-Day, Pfeiffer says that she worked in a hospital in France, was finally sent back to the U.S. after the war and was discharged in 1946. She says that she enlisted in the Air Force in 1949, served at various bases and hospitals around the world and retired in 1964 while stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB. Ends abruptly. Pfeiffer is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Air Force Colonel Eleanor M. Carey talks about her youth and education in Pennsylvania, her long U.S. Air Force career and her service in the Vietnam War. After graduating from the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Pittsburgh, Cary says that she joined the Air Force on October 19, 1955. She says that after basic and advanced training, she was first stationed in Beirut, Lebanon and later volunteered for duty in Vietnam when that war heated up. Cary talks about treating Vietnamese civilians as part of the military's MEDCAP program, her living conditions at U.S. base at Cam Ranh Bay and working as a flight nurse in air-evac and taking causalities to medical care directly from the battlefield. Carey says that as a capstone to her Vietnam service, she escorted future Senator John McCain when he was released from a North Vietnamese prison in 1973. She says that she retired from the Air Force in October 1979 and that she "loved every minute" of her career. Carey is interviewed by Ruth F. 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 Lieutenant Colonel Kathleen Rheinlander O'Neal says that she decided to become an Army nurse while in high school, graduated from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing in 1970 and went straight into basic training as a staff nurse at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. She talks about her various duty stations and assignments and says that she resigned from active duty in 1975, joined the Army Reserves and worked at the 94th General Hospital unit in San Antonio, Texas. O'Neal describes her activities as a reserve officer and says that in January 1991 she was recalled to active duty for service in Operation Desert Storm, sent to a hospital in Germany and finally returned to the U.S. in April of that year and retired from the service shortly after. She says the military gave her a solid career, an extensive network of friends, and a good education. O'Neal 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:
- In an oral history interview, Margaret Patricia Phillips talks about her thirty-two years of service in the United States Army Nurse Corps. Phillips says that she joined the Army for patriotic reasons in 1944 while working as a nurse in a Detroit hospital. She says that she served as "chief nurse" in military hospitals around the globe and vividly remembers her plane taking enemy fire as it was trying to take off from the Bien Hoa Air Force Base in South Vietnam. Phillips says the biggest adjustment she had to make to military life was the communal living and that she did not expect to make the Army a career when she enlisted. Phillips is interviews by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Sophie Steffer discusses her twenty year career in the United States Army Nurse Corps, focusing primarily on her service in World War Two. Steffer says that her civilian job was considered "essential" to the war effort and that she was denied enlistment for two years because of it. She says that she was first sent overseas to India near the end of the war and then later to the Philippines, Germany and Japan with the occupation forces. Steffer talks about living in thatched huts in India, Quonset huts in the Philippines, and apartments in Germany and Japan and describes processing soldiers and civilians who had been Japanese prisoners, while she was in Calcutta. She says that her biggest adjustment to military life was learning to salute and accepting the separation of enlisted personnel and officers. Steffer is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Martha Baker talks about her twenty-year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and says that she began as a general duty nurse but spent most of her time as a surgical nurse before moving to central supply and supervision. She recalls her overseas and U.S. assignments, including serving in Okinawa and Vietnam and says that the housing overseas was better than in the States and that she was "disappointed" by the unattractive uniforms she had to wear. Baker also says she had to make few adjustments to military life and found it to be incredibly exciting. She describes her post-retirement jobs, including teaching ROTC for the past eleven years. Baker is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Major Harriet Jayne talks about her long career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, before, during and after World War II. After receiving her nurse's training at Marquette University, Jayne says that she enlisted in the Army and was sent to Fort Custer in Michigan for training in February 1941, was shipped out with the 52nd Evac Hospital to New Caledonia in September 1942 and to the New Hebrides with the 48th Station Hospital in January 1943. She talks about the mosquitoes, and hot days and cold nights in the South Pacific, having malaria and later being sent to New Zealand to recover from a broken foot. Jayne says that she rejoined her unit on Guadalcanal in June 1944, moved north with the fighting to Tinian Island in January 1945 and was on Tinian when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. She says that she returned to the States in October 1945 and recalls her many duty stations after the war and finally ending her career in February 1961 while serving at Fort Bragg. Jayne is interviewed by Betty C. Taylor Thompson.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-05-10T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Eleanor Carey talks about her service as a career U.S. Air Force nurse beginning in 1955. Carey says that after her basic training she was sent to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and later was stationed in Greece. She lists other stateside assignments, says that she earned a bachelors degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, become a recruiter in New Haven, CT, performed Air Force public relations work and finally did a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. She describes her base, her quarters, and her duties in Vietnam and remembers President Johnson making a surprise visit to personally hand out medals to the patients in her hospital. After Vietnam, Carey says that she was stationed at various places, including Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio and Norton Air Force Base in California. Carey says her experience in Vietnam changed her attitude about war and that she even joined a veterans anti-war organization. Carey is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Marion Steinhilber talks about her 27 year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, including her service overseas in World War II. Steinhiber says that she went on active duty in April 1944 and was sent to Atlantic City for basic training and that her first duty station was at Halloran General Hospital on Staten Island. Steinhilber says that she first thought that she would be stationed in Europe, but soon found herself bound for India, by way of Newfoundland, Casablanca, Cairo, and Abadan Island. After landing in Calcutta, she says that she joined the 142nd General Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan and then later the 20th General Hospital in Ledo, India. She talks about life in Ledo, including surviving monsoons, her quarters, the food, the pests, the quality of life for nurses and treating American and Chinese troops. Steinhilber says she returned to the States soon after V-J Day and was "separated" from the Army in May 1946, but was never "discharged". Steinhilber also says that she later found out that she was considered to be on "inactive reserve" and was called up for active duty in 1951 as the Korean War heated up. Steinhilber is interviewed by Ruth Stewart assisted by Carol Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
14. Interview of retired Lieutenant Colonel Jean Schiffman on her career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps
- 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:
- Irene Cully discusses her twenty-two year career in the United States Army Nurse Corps. Cully says that she was working as a nurse in a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska when she joined the Army in August 1939 and that one of her primary reasons for enlisting was the great benefits the service offered. Cully says that she worked as a nurse anesthetist at many different Army medical facilities before being sent overseas when the World War II started. She recalls being scared to death shortly after D-Day while "passing gas" in a surgical tent in France while being strafed by German fighter planes. She says that she adjusted easily to military life and decided to make the Army a career after the war. Cully is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-04T00:00:00Z
- 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 Mary Ruth Pullig talks about growing up in Arkansas and Louisiana, her education and her long career as a U.S. Army nurse. After nursing school and working at various hospitals in the south, Pullig says that she joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1943, did her basic training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and was first assigned to Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver. She also talks about other Stateside assignments and says that she was finally sent overseas to New Guinea and and then to the Philippines and describes the living conditions at both posts, the poor diet, working under enemy fire, some of the patients she treated and nursing civilians suffering from collateral damage wounds. After the war, Pullig says that she was stationed in occupied Germany for a time and finally came back to the States and earned bachelors and masters degrees. She says she is thankful for being given the opportunity to travel and see the world and that the young men who fought were good men overall and that she enjoyed her experience with them and helping people as a nurse. Ruth Stewart interviews Pullig.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z
- 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
- Description:
- Ninety year old U.S. Army and Air Force veteran Mary Templeton Gates talks about her childhood, education and service career. Gates says that her decision to go into nursing was the result of her family's long history in medicine and that after graduating from nursing school in 1938, she worked in Georgia and New York City before deciding to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps to become a flight nurse. Gates says that she turned down a teaching position to become chief nurse in a squadron sent to the Pacific during the war and describes her career in the Army through service in hospitals in Guam, Hawaii and Bermuda. After the war, Gates says that she left the Army, but later enlisted for duty in the Air Force at the start of the Korean War. She says that she became a Lieutenant Colonel around 1960 and finally retired shortly after. Templeton is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-04-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lieutenant Colonel Bernice R. Couzynse (Ret.) talks about her long military career and serving on four continents as a United States Army nurse. Couzynse says she completed nursing school in the fall of 1942 and by March 1943 had enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. She tells of deploying to North Africa with a hospital unit, being under attack by German aircraft, moving up to Naples after the invasion of Italy, setting up a hospital at an agricultural college, moving with the troops as they advanced, being near the front lines and treating extreme battlefield injuries. At the end of the war in Europe, Couzynse says that she did not have enough points to rotate home and was slated to be sent to Japan as part of the U.S. invasion forces. Ironically, she says that she did later serve in Japan during the Korean Conflict. Couzynse recalls her duty in Germany in the early 1960s, the Berlin Wall crisis when all leaves were cancelled, and finally finishing her career as head nurse at William Beaumont Hospital in El Paso, TX in April 1971. She credits the Army with giving her a chance to have an interesting career, to travel, and to make many friends. Couzynse is interviewed by Doris J. Triick.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-03-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, retired Army Colonel Lois A. Johns talks about her education, her career in the Army Nurse Corp and her service in the Vietnam War. Johns talks about growing up in Cleveland, earning her nursing degree in 1948, a second bachelor's degree in 1950 and later two master's degrees and finally, in 1967, a doctorate. In 1950, she says that she also joined the Army Reserve and that her active duty began in 1960 when she was promoted to Captain. She describes a number of her duty stations, going back into the reserves while working and going to school and then going back on active duty as a Major for duty in Vietnam. She says that she arrived in Saigon late at night, was assigned to the "renal ward" at the 629th Medical Detachment of the 3rd Field Hospital and describes her quarters, her duties, her patients, the local cuisine and culture and says that she was awarded a Bronze Star when she left Vietnam and was assigned to the Institute for Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston. She goes on to discuss her various duty stations after Vietnam, both stateside and abroad and says that she finally retired from the Army in 1980. Johns praises her many coworkers throughout the years, but says that women often had problems dealing with their male counterparts and that sexual harassment did exist in the service. Johns 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:
- 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:
- Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Anne Noreen Bauer talks about her twenty-eight year career as an United States Army nurse. Bauer talks about enlisting in August 1942 at the age of twenty-seven, her training, early assignments at Fort Benjamin Harrison where she became head nurse and finally shipping out to Bombay, India on her way to Karachi with the 159th Station Hospital. Bauer remembers the voyage to India, having dinner with Britain's Lord Louis Mountbatten, working with British nurses, staff and civilians, taking over a convent to use as a hospital, and the many the diseases and injuries she treated. She also discusses her many post-war assignments which took her around the world and especially her efforts to establish hospitals in Vietnam and provide the local population with medical assistance. Bauer is interviewed by Jane Fore.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-06-20T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
24. Interview of retired Colonel Edythe Jean Hathaway on her long career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps
- 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:
- Eighty-four year old retired Army Colonel Esther Jane McNeil discusses her long career in the U.S. Army. McNeil says that she grew up in rural Pennsylvania, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in 1940, enlisted in the Nurse Corps in 1943 and was first stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona. She says that despite some health problems, she was finally sent overseas to India and was made head of the operating room at the 20th General Hospital in Ledo, India. McNeil was on leave in Darjeeling when she received orders to prepare for the invasion of Japan, but says that the war ended before her unit had even made it to the Philippines. After the war, McNeil says that she joined the Army Reserves and then went back to active duty during the Korean War. She also discusses the various positions she held until her retirement in 1971. McNeil is interviewed by Doris Cobb.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Lieutenant Colonel Margaret E. Oaks talks about her twenty-one year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps which began in July 1944 during World War II. Oaks says she was attached to an "air-evac" hospital during the war and discusses her wartime quarters and her various uniforms, and remembers being in Le Harve, France after D-Day and being amazed at the level of destruction. Oaks says she did not consider making the Army a career but when the war ended just decided that she was "cut out to be in the military." She talks about serving in post-war Germany and lists her other postings throughout the U.S. and around the world and says that she worked in almost every nursing specialty during her long career, including supervision and command. Oaks is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jeannette Marshall talks about her twenty years of military service. Marshall says she was born in Sheridan, Wyoming, educated in California, and received her nurse's training at St. Vincent's Hospital in Los Angeles. Marshall says that a failed marriage prompted her to enlist in the Air Force in September 1952 and after her training, was sent to Japan as a flight nurse to help in the evacuation of wounded from battlefields in Korea. Marshall says that in 1955 her flight crew was part of the effort to evacuate French casualties from Vietnam to the Philippines and that 104 wounded soldiers, mostly amputees, were transported in one flight. She says that she was later stationed in Germany and England and at various U.S. bases and eventually retired in San Antonio in 1972. Marshall is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-16T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lola Olsmith talks about choosing to become a nurse, attending nursing school in Little Rock, Arkansas, joining the Army in 1967 and volunteering for duty in Vietnam. She says that after her basic training in San Antonio, she was sent directly to Vietnam and recalls the anxiety she felt as she flew into Saigon at midnight with 13 other nurses. Olsmith talks about her hospital duties in Vietnam, living in Quonset huts, taking care of Viet Cong prisoners, her experiences during the February 1968 Tet Offensive, working in a recovery ward where patients often woke with missing limbs, and making medical visits to Vietnamese villages and orphanages. After her one year tour of duty in Vietnam, Olsmith says that she returned to the U.S., decided to make the Army her career, served in various duty stations around the country, went into the Army Reserves in 1979 as a Major, was reactivated in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm and finally retired from the Army in November of that year. Olsmith says her time in the service gave her a sense of confidence as well as a career. Olsmith is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart assisted by Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired U.S. Army Captain Cecelia G. Mehlick recalls her service in the Army Nurse Corps beginning in World War Two. In this oral history interview, Mehlick describes being inducted into the Army in April 1944, basic training at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin and later being sent to Mayo General Hospital in Galesburg, IL to be trained a a nurse anesthetist. Mehlick talks about her duties at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina and Ft. Belvoir in Virginia before being sent to Texas to help set up a surgical center during Army training maneuvers. Mehlick says that she was finally sent to Europe to treat front-line casualties and at war's end, spent many hours also treating German civilians. After breaking her ankle in Germany, Mehlick says that she was shipped back to the U.S. and lists a number of later assignments she had both in the U.S. and Europe before retiring after 20 years of military service.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Evelyn Barbier says that she joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in 1941 because she knew that war was imminent and then spent the next twenty years in the Army even though she had never planned on a military career. She talks about some of her duty stations, including the Panama Canal Zone in 1942 and later Germany, Japan, Guam, and Saipan and describes her duties, housing and uniforms and riding out a typhoon in Saipan and a measles epidemic on Guam. Barbier says she adjusted easily to military life and returned to civilian nursing after she retired from the Army. Barbier is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-04T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a poignant oral history interview, Marian Weller talks about her long career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and her service during the Vietnam War. Weller says that she comes from a family with a long military history and that she even graduated as a second lieutenant from the Army Student Nurse program in 1967. She talks about her basic training at Fort Sam Houston, working at Walter Reed Hospital in 1968 and being shipped to Vietnam in February 1969 to join the 95th Evac Hospital, across the harbor from Da Nang. She talks about her duty in the "yuck unit" working with patients with disfiguring battlefield injuries, the civilian casualties brought in by the choppers, life on the base, being in a helicopter crash, atrocities committed by the Viet Cong, the corruption which was part of daily life, trying to clean blood off concrete floors and the relentless tropical heat and humidity. She says that she rotated back to the States in 1970 and served at hospitals in Maryland, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, Texas and the Philippines and finally retired as a major in 2002. Weller talks candidly about developing medical and emotional problems in the years after her Vietnam service and says that she was finally diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after a visit to the Vietnam War Memorial sent her into a three day crying jag. Weller is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Colonel Mildred Fritz talks about her 29 year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corp and her service in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. Fritz talks about growing up in New Jersey and deciding to become an Army nurse when World War II started and discusses her duty stations in San Antonio, Texas, Osaka, Japan, Denver, Colorado, Landstuhl, Germany, Long Binh, Vietnam, and Heidelberg, Germany. Fritz says that the opportunity to be involved in cutting edge advances in cardiac care was the most rewarding part of her military medical career. She also talks about her life after her retirement in September 1979 and says that she spends most of her time gardening and traveling.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project