Military Nurses in US History

Serving in the military is a noble profession! Serving as a military nurse is even nobler! The nurses have a purer mission in war than others. They serve like ‘angels’ to soothe and comfort the injured. Nursing is a profession that demands courage, compassion and above all, composure.

The history of military nursing can be traced to the time of Florence Nightingale, an English nurse. Her major contribution was during the Crimean War (1853-56), where she worked to improve the conditions of the injured soldiers. She had trained the women volunteer nurses and worked in Turkey where the main British camp was based. Nightingale believed that the death rates were due to poor nutrition and supplies, overworking of the soldiers and poor living conditions. This influenced her and she advocated the importance of sanitary living conditions. Consequently, she reduced deaths in the army during peacetime and turned attention to the sanitary design of hospitals.

International Nurses Day (12th May) is celebrated on her birthday each year. Nightingale laid the foundation stone of professional nursing with the principles summarized in the book ‘Notes on Nursing’.

Members of the Army Nurse Corps worked all around the world at all levels of the Army. The Army Nurse Corps began on 2nd February 1901. In 1902; the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service replaced, by royal warrant, the Army Nursing Service. In 1908, the United States Navy Nurse Corps was established. These nurses had served in the World Wars as well as Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 1918 , Ms Lenah Higbee was awarded the Navy Cross for distinguished service in the line of her profession and unusual and conspicuous devotion to duty as superintendent of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She was the first living woman to receive this honor. She had served during the First World War too. An U.S. Navy combat ship, USS Higbee was named in her honor. It was the first time for a naval ship to bear the name of a female member.

In 1938 ,the Nurses Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery was erected in Section 21 (the “Nurses Section”) to honor nurses who served in the armed forces during the First World War. Over 600 nurses were buried at Arlington alone. In 1942, in Banka Island massacre, twenty one Australian nurses, survivors of a bombed and sunken ship were executed by bayonet or machine gun by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers on February 16 proving that they are next to none in sacrifice! In 1943, Erna Flegel, a German nurse, became “Hitler’s nurse” in January and served in that capacity until his suicide at the end of the World War II.

In 1949, the U.S. Air Force Nurse Corps was established to facilitate the services of nurses in US led wars. In 1950, the Korean War got started and many nurses from the U.S. too served in the war. The US Military nurses had also contributed significantly to the Vietnam War (1959-75) and the Persian Gulf War (1990-91).

Wars are a continuing phenomenon and no one can really stop them. Military nurses not only serve the injured in the wars, but these committed souls also try to alleviate the pain of the suffering soldiers in whatever way they can.

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