Women have been providing nursing services for the Army long before there was the United States!
They didn’t have the rankings we see today, because they were not allowed to join the army, but they played a vital role in the multiple wars America would face.
Limited in what they were allowed to do, their duties consisted of preparing diets for wounded soldiers, distributing supplies, and cleaning. These women did all of these things, and more. They proved to the military, and to the rest of the country, the need for nurses on the front lines.
They also blazed a trail for nursing schools to be established and esteemed in America.
In 1908, the Navy laid the foundations for the Navy Nurse Corps. With only women allowed to be nurses, the first group were famously named the “Sacred 20”.
They could only be assigned to the Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C.
Lenah Higbee was a member of the Sacred 20, and Superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps during World War I.
Taking the Nurse Corps from its humble beginnings, Higbee helped to actively employ over 1300 nurses.
She served on several healthcare committees, prepared the Red Cross for World War I, and was awarded the Navy Cross in 1920 for her heroic service.
Two destroyers, the USS Higbee and the USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee, were named in honor of Nurse Lenah.
Continuing in the pioneer spirit, Della Raney was commissioned as the first African Woman into the Army Nurse Corps in 1941.
4 Years later, the Navy Reserve welcomed Phyllis Mae Daily to the Navy Nurse Corps.
After the Army-Navy Nurses Act of 1947 passed, nursing in the military drastically changed.
Nursing officers would now hold commissioned ranks, and were allowed to stay on as permanent staff in the Navy’s medical department.
During a turn of fate in 1955, President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized for 6 weeks.
The army nurses caring for him spoke up about the below standard living arrangements, frequent overseas rotations, and being forced to retire from the military by age 55.
President Eisenhower helped advance their careers by correcting these issues.
Legislation passed in 1949 to allow male citizens to become military nurses.
The debate of this continued on until 1955, when the Army Nurse Corps welcomed its first male nurse, Edward L.T. Lyon. (pictured left)
Colonel Lawrence C. Washington (center) was the first male nurse to receive a regular commission in the Army Nurse Corps.
2d Lt. Joseph M. Tracy and 1st Lt. John W. O’Brien, the first male Army Nurse Corps to serve in the 4th Army area. (right)
Vietnam was the first major deployment of men as nurses into combat.
Due to the unconventional nature of the conflict, many army nurses faced enemy fire for the first time.
Several nurses lost their lives.
Today, there are over 29,000 highly qualified men and women nurses serving in the US military.
They are mental health specialists, practitioners, and anesthetists.
Deployed all over the world, their duties include checking wounds for infection, preparing soldiers for surgeries, providing pre and post operative care, and monitoring pain medication.
They educate patients how to care for themselves, and provide emotional support for soldiers and their families.
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