Oral history interview with Patricia L. Childers, 2002

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WOMEN VETERANS HISTORICAL PROJECT
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Patricia L. Childers
INTERVIEWER: Hermann J. Trojanowski
DATE: August 10, 2002
[Begin Interview]
HT: Today is Saturday, August 10, 2002. My name is Hermann Trojanowski, and I’m at the
home of Miss Patricia Childers, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I’m here to interview
Miss Childers for the Women Veterans Historical Collection at the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro.
Miss Childers, if you would, tell me your full name. We’ll use it as a test.
PC: It’s Patricia Lynn Childers.
HT: First question, I’ll be asking some biographical information about yourself, which is,
where were you born and when?
PC: I was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, February of 1950.
HT: Where did you live before you enlisted in the navy?
PC: I was born and raised right there in Lynchburg, and joined the service at the age of
twenty-two.
HT: Can you tell me a little bit about your family, about your mom and dad and brothers and
sisters and that sort of thing.
PC: I’d be happy to. My parents, who are still living, were born and raised near Lynchburg,
one in one county and one in the other, so that’s why they lived there in Lynchburg. My
father served in the United States Navy in World War II, and also was recalled for Korea
after I had been born.
I have an older brother, and he served in the navy as well. So now you see it’s a
theme here why I joined the navy. But he served during the Vietnam War. Never went
actually to Vietnam. He served for four years on an oiler out of Norfolk. I have a
younger sister who still lives with her family there in Lynchburg.
HT: What was the name of the high school that you attended?
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PC: I attended Brookeville High School in Campbell County, which is not really in the city
limit. It’s the same school that my brother and sister attended.
HT: Did you attend college?
PC: I did. Part-time at the community college in Lynchburg, Central Virginia Community
College, but I got most of my college education through the GI Bill or tuition assistance
in the military. So I attended several different colleges. In fact, just Friday I enrolled in
Methodist College here in Fayetteville under the GI Bill. So I’ll be hopefully completing
this degree that’s taken years to get.
HT: What type of work did you do before you joined the navy?
PC: After I graduated from high school in 1969, I had done a work-study program while I was
still in high school with the local hospital, Lynchburg General. So I continued working
for them while I attended some classes at the community college, but joined the navy in
’72, so that was a short stint.
HT: Do you recall why you joined?
PC: I’ve already mentioned the strong family background. I’m sure that, like many folks,
every night with the evening news talking about Vietnam, talking about all the deaths in
Vietnam, and with me having a medical background and being very interested in
medicine, I just felt like that there was something I could do, and if there was, I needed to
do it. So I enlisted. I went and talked to all the recruiters, but with the strong naval
background that my family had, I did choose to go with the navy.
HT: How did your parents and siblings and friends feel about you joining?
PC: They were so supportive. I think I shocked everyone, though, because I was pretty much
a homebody. So I think they were a little bit surprised that I was going to be the one to
venture out and leave the nest, if you will. But they were so supportive. I mean, just
everyone.
Some of my friends had already served in the military, most of them being male.
I had one person that I knew had been in the air force for a short period of time, and I met
at the hospital when she returned from her career, but she had done like three years in the
air force. They were real supportive.
HT: Did your parents have to sign in order for you to join? Because you were over twenty-one,
right?
PC: I was over twenty-one, so it was not—I mean, although I certainly discussed it with them
before I made such a major decision. And I really kind of agonized, because it was like a
four-year commitment, and I had never made a four-year commitment to anything. And I
knew that it was going to be a whole different way of life. I had my own apartment by
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this time, and my car and my belongings. You know, I just took it all home and left it
with my parents until I got settled and through some training with the navy.
HT: This was sort of the tail end of the Vietnam War, and I think you mentioned earlier in the
conversation that listening to the news every night brought Vietnam up constantly, and so
it sounds like there was some sort of influence there. Vietnam did influence you to join.
PC: Oh, definitely, definitely. That war, I think, influenced my whole generation. We lost so
many people, and there was a young man that had gone to high school with my brother
that was a prisoner of war. Originally we thought that he was killed in action, and then it
came out that he was a POW. We knew his family and we knew him, and then were other
neighbors that passed away during Vietnam after serving the country. And so there were
funerals at Arlington [Cemetery], and a lot of my classmates went in the service, mostly
males, though. I don’t think there were any females that I know of that I went to high
school with that went into the service.
HT: Do you recall what people, in general, thought about women joining the military at that
time? I know during World War II there were some slanderous attacks against women
who joined the WACs [Women’s Army Corps] and that sort of thing. Did you have this
feeling at that period of time?
PC: Well, I think it was. Vietnam was certainly not popular, as we know. And, in fact, people
coming back really tried to hide the fact that that’s where they had been for the last few
years or last year or whatever. So I do think it was a stigma attached to it. My brother
was really concerned about that, I think, being the older brother, you know, he was a little
bit concerned because he had been in the navy and he was aboard a ship and he didn’t see
very many women in the navy, because women weren’t aboard ship at that time.
But I just felt that I could do this and I was needed. My recruiter made me feel
that my services were certainly needed. I went into a very traditional field. I stayed with
the Hospital Corps, which was very traditional for women. So my job in the navy really
kind of mirrored my job in civilian life, so I wasn’t really worried about that the job was
going to be so different. I already knew what to expect in a hospital setting.
HT: Where did you enlist?
PC: Although the recruiter was in Lynchburg, I actually left from the recruit—I guess it was
like the regional station out of Roanoke, Virginia, which was like forty-five miles from
my home.
HT: Do you recall what type of tests you had to take—written, physical?
PC: There was this whole battery of tests. In fact, I joined under the Delayed Entry Program
in April of ’72. I decided I was going to do this, and I went, and then, of course, found
out that I could sign all the papers and I could raise my hand and whatever, but they were
delaying the entry. I’m not quite sure why, although during the time that I signed up and
went in October of ’72, the Recruit Training Command for women moved from
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Bainbridge, Maryland, to Orlando, Florida. So I think maybe that was part of the delay,
that they didn’t have a place for me to be trained, to go to boot camp. Now, I don’t know
that officially, but I do know it moved, because I was under the impression—my recruiter
had told me that I’d go to Bainbridge. Then when it came time to go in October, then it
was like, “Oh, you’re going to Orlando.” And I was like, “Disney World?” [laughs]
HT: So you had to take a written test prior to joining?
PC: Definitely.
HT: And did you have to take a physical of some sort as well?
PC: Definitely, yes. And that was kind of interesting, too, because it ended up that the doctor
that did my physical in Roanoke was a doctor that I knew. He was not in the military, but
I guess he was under contract with them. And he was totally surprised. We walked in the
door and there I sat, because he didn’t realize—I mean, I knew him from the hospital, but
I didn’t know him well enough that he knew that I was going to go in the service.
HT: You said you went to Orlando for basic training. How long did that last?
PC: Boot camp is about four—no, I guess it was six weeks. It was from October ’72 to
December, so it’s about six weeks, I believe. I was in Company 13, but we called it
Lucky Company 13, at RTC Orlando.
HT: Is this outside of Orlando?
PC: It is. It’s really kind of near Winter Park, I guess. Part of the base, which is now closed,
but part of it actually is right on the outskirts of Winter Park.
HT: What do you recall about the first day at boot camp? What kind of impression?
PC: It was a long day, of course. The recruiter picked me up. My father ran a garage, and
this was just a great send-off for me. I had a neighbor that was very close to me. These
children grew up with myself and my brother. And here he is out there when the recruiter
came, he’s out there whistling “Anchors Away” when I left at something like five-thirty
or six o’clock in the morning. I think it was six in the morning that they picked me up.
So he took me to Roanoke, and then I didn’t leave, fly out of Roanoke till about
three o’clock that afternoon. It was my first airplane ride or whatever, you know, flight,
so my parents met me at the airport to see me off, my parents and my sister. And then
my brother, he didn’t live in Lynchburg at that time, but lived further north, around
Waynesboro [Virginia], he came in and saw me off, too, which was a total surprise. So I
really got a good sendoff from them.
But I remember arriving in Orlando, nice airport, and there was one other girl on
the flight with me that was from Lynchburg or from Madison Heights, [Virginia], which
is one of the surrounding communities, but I did not know her and hadn’t met her until
that day.
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So we get to the airport, and then we have to wait. It’s part of the hurry-up-and-wait
routine, because we wait for other flights to arrive. So we didn’t actually get to the
base until maybe nine o’clock. I mean, we ate at the airport or whatever, and there was
no meal involved.
But we arrived there, and the first thing I remember is the doors to the bus
opening up, and this woman comes on the bus, and she has got a voice that would just
scare you to death. She was barking these orders about getting off the bus and
confiscating—you know, we’ve got to empty our purses. We actually got this detailed
mimeographed sheet on what we could bring, what we couldn’t bring. I guess some
people didn’t read that, because they were confiscating candy and gum and all kinds of
stuff that they weren’t supposed to have, and they were being yelled out.
They had a routine, but it was not something that I was expecting, I guess. I
mean, I didn’t expect them to come out and escort me up to my private room, but I wasn’t
expecting all the yelling and the scurrying around, and we were all pretty tired by that
point as well. But it was to bed about—I guess it was probably—by the time we ended
up with everything, we got to bed maybe eleven or twelve, and then they were sounding
reveille in the morning over a loudspeaker. But it sounded like the loudspeaker was right
over my head, so it was quite a jolt.
HT: So that was your introduction to navy life, so to speak. What about the next day? Do
you recall what that was like? Your first full day.
PC: The first full day was like get up really, really early in the morning. I mean, it was before
daybreak, obviously. Get up, make this bunk. And I laughed and told my mother,
because I don’t consider myself a morning person, and I do make my bed, but I don’t
make it as soon as I get out of it, you know, type thing. But it was get up and make this
bed to some fashion. I did have some experience working in a hospital, about hospital
corners and stuff, so I think I had a little bit of a heads-up on that.
Then going into the bathroom where the lights were just so bright. There was all
this light and all these sinks in a row and all these toilets. And we did have stalls, but
they didn’t have doors on them. But it did afford you some privacy. And then the
shower was this huge room with shower spigots, and no curtains around or whatever. It
reminded me of showering after gym class, although we did have individual stalls at the
school that I went to.
So there was no privacy, and I think that was my first—and then was a battery of
marching. You know, march to breakfast, but you only have so long to eat for breakfast,
and no talking in line. A lot of orders, and trying to remember all that and keep that fresh
in my mind. It was kind of mind-boggling, I think, even though, you know, I mean, I felt
like I was an adult, and there were lots of women there that were younger than I was. But
it was interesting.
HT: When were you issued uniforms, and what did you think of the uniform?
PC: Well, the uniform issuance came several weeks later. I mean, you know, they told us
what kind of clothes to bring, civilian attire, and so we went through a battery of more
physicals, more shots, some more testing. There was attrition going on here. People
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were leaving, you know, for one reason or another. The woman that was with me, that
came from my hometown, she left fairly early on because she was diabetic and had not
revealed that. I don’t know how she got in without that being known, but I guess she
didn’t bring her medication with her and so she got sick and ended up going to medical,
and then she was like gone the next day.
So there was some attrition going on. So I would way we got fitted for these
uniforms which were the traditional World War II-era WAVES [Women Accepted for
Volunteer Emergency Service] uniform, the blue wool serge. And in Orlando you’re
like, “Oh, my goodness.” But we didn’t get to wear that right away. There was a
hierarchy of what you get to wear, and I think the first thing we wore were the dungaree
uniforms, which they called dungarees, but they were not dungarees. They were a navy
blue slacks that zipped up the side, women’s slacks, and a blue-chambray-type shirt. It’s
not the chambray that we think of; it was a lighter material than that. And then we wore
what we referred to as the fore-and-aft cap with that.
So you wore that for several weeks to class. Once the uniforms got issued—once
you got those uniforms; let me put it that way—you shipped all of your civilian clothes
home with the exception of one outfit. And I imagine that that one outfit was if you had
to go home for emergency leave or if you left for any reason, that was your uniform or
that would be your clothing that you would wear home. So we were able to keep it. We
didn’t keep it in our lockers; we had to put that away with our luggage.
That was kind of weird, because being issued these clothes and putting my things
away, that made me feel kind of weird to put those away. I mean, I didn’t think I had
joined a convent, but it was almost like that. It was almost like, “Boy, will I ever see
these clothes again?” But I knew I would, because the restrictions on wearing uniforms
was not like—I mean, it had changed. I knew eventually I would have a job and go to the
[unclear] maybe in a uniform and conduct my life accordingly.
HT: What type of classroom training did you receive?
PC: It was really pretty interesting. The classrooms were really nice. They were modern
buildings and air-conditioned. We would sit through naval orientation, through first aid.
They did a class on health. They really kind of taught us from square one what the navy
was about, and I found that extremely interesting because, of course, knowing that my
relatives had been in and whatever.
They talked about careers in the navy and what the different classifications were,
but then they also had a whole thing on terminology. I mean, in the navy, a wall is a
bulkhead, and the floor is the deck, and a staircase is a ladder, and the restroom is a head.
So there’s a whole jargon that I had to learn, and we all had to learn. And we were
expected to learn that quickly and refer. I mean, it was really important that we learn
those.
And then we had physical education. They had this huge Olympic-size pool, and
you had to pass a swim test. And then you did other training which it kind of tickled me
because they had us in this pool, and they’d give us what we referred to as the Dixie cup,
which was a man’s white hat. But we were not issued that hat. We would never wear
that hat, but we had to make it a flotation device and stay afloat for a certain length of
time in the deep end of this pool. Because if for any reason we got thrown into the water,
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they didn’t want us to drown. And that just amazed me that they did that with that hat
that we wouldn’t have. You know, it was like, “Well, where am I going to get this hat
from? Am I supposed to swipe it off somebody’s head?” You know, that’s what I was
thinking.
And the other thing that they did was they gave us men’s dungaree pants, not to
wear, but we had these pants. We had to put them on at the pool, over our swimsuit. We
had to jump into the pool. We had to take these off. We had to tie the legs, not together,
but individually, and then pull it over your head with such force the air would get into it,
and pull it under you and use that as a flotation device. But, again, we weren’t issued
those pants, so I’m not sure where we were supposed to get those to keep from drowning
either.
But at that point in time, women were not aboard ship, so I guess they had these
arbitrary rules that we had to do that and had to pass the swim test, and you had to jump
off of the high diving board, and that kind of thing. And there was all this talk about, you
know, if you ever had to abandon ship, what you would do. The women weren’t aboard
ship, so that was kind of a—okay. I served twenty-four years and never served aboard
ship, so I was like, “Okay.” But I know what to do in an “abandon ship” scenario or
whatever.
HT: What type of instructors did you have? Were they military or civilian?
PC: They were all military. They were all military women. I remember that my recruit
training commander was a second class, which is an E-5 in the navy. Within our
company, we had individuals within that company that were our leaders as well, squad
leaders and that kind of thing that took on a leadership role.
It was interesting to see that develop and to see other people’s reaction to these
people. Some of them kind of bucked their authority. You know, they felt like they were
recruits. Why were they getting the special recognition or whatever? But it was
interesting to see that, because as I said, I was a little bit older. I wasn’t selected to be
one of those leaders at Recruit Training Command, because I was interviewed, but I think
part of it was because I didn’t want that added responsibility.
At that point I wanted to get through what I had to get through, and I didn’t want
to be responsible for anyone but myself, and I kind of voiced that. I talked to some of the
other recruits and I tried to encourage them and whatever, and I actually have a picture.
My mother gave me this picture from boot camp that I didn’t remember. They had taken
this group picture, and reading some of the inscriptions on the back, I guess I helped
some of these women get through or whatever. I don’t remember it as that, but I didn’t
take on a leadership role there. Later, in the “A” School I did, but I just felt like this was
all brand new to me and I needed to concentrate on me getting through.
HT: Did you have anything like KP [kitchen patrol duty]? We had KP in the air force.
PC: No. It was interesting, because they had people in like the chow hall or whatever, but we
didn’t have to do that. I guess if we did something wrong, you know, you’d get demerits
or whatever, but they’d have you do marching or close order drills or something like that.
They didn’t really give you a bucket and potatoes to peel or anything like that, so it
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wasn’t in that respect. Although there were military people—I mean, there were military
cooks and whatever that provided our food, but I don’t remember going through any of
that.
Now, we did fire watches in the barracks. That was the big military thing. And
of course, when you’ve got that many people in a place, then you have to have fire
watches, and we have drills and that kind of thing.
HT: Can you explain what a fire watch is?
PC: During the time frame that we were in the barracks on off time, not in the classroom, we
would be assigned so many hours to be what they referred to as a fire watch. There was a
desk—by desk I mean like a classroom desk, not a big desk or whatever, but it’s like a
chair with a table area. And you’d have a log. The navy’s big on logs. You’d have to
maintain this log, and you would relieve another military, another one of your recruits.
Another one of your recruits would be there before you, and you’d go up and relieve
them, and they would give you keys and they’d give you a flashlight, and you needed to
know what the procedure was in case of a fire or in case someone got sick, and who you
would notify, and that kind of thing.
And then the fire watch would kind of patrol. I mean, you’d patrol when your
shipmates were sleeping. You would be awake. So when you went to sleep at night, you
knew that someone would be awake throughout the night. Not the whole night. You’d
only do like two or three hours in a stint, but you’d watch out and make sure that you
were okay.
And that took some getting used to for me trying to sleep, because although I had
siblings, I had my own room. I was used to things being dark and quiet and whatever,
and so it was odd for me when somebody would walk by, because you could actually feel
them like walking by. The bunks were really pretty close together and whatever. But we
weren’t in cubicles. We weren’t in what we referred to as an open bay situation. So that
was a little bit better. There were like, let’s see, two, four—there were maybe six or eight
people in a cubicle, depending. And we’d have individual lockers. So the cubicles didn’t
go all the way up to the ceiling. You could look over these cubicles. They did afford you
a little bit of privacy. And then if you opened your locker doors—I mean, I got dressed
in my locker pretty much, to afford a little bit of privacy.
But that was the main thing. You’d do the fire watches, you’d maintain your log,
and that was kind of the first part of learning the military traditions and courtesies.
Because when the officer would come, you’d do your “attention on deck” and you’d
stand. We didn’t salute. The navy does not salute inside or anything like that, so we
didn’t really have to salute, but you had to be standing at attention and, you know,
learning the military courtesy.
HT: What was a typical day like once you had been around for a few days or a few weeks,
starting from the morning till lights out?
PC: You’d go through—you know, of course, you’d do breakfast. Before you’d go to
breakfast, though—the navy has a great term, and it’s called “turning to.” It’s something
I still do today. What you do is, when you get up, or when you’re getting ready to leave
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an area, before you leave that area, you pick up that area. You clean up that area. You
empty the trash. I mean, you never leave a trash can with trash in it. You just take it and
dispose of it.
The morning routine was, you’d get up to this reveille over the loudspeaker, and
you’d form up, and they would do a muster, what they call a muster, to make sure that
everybody was there, everybody was still breathing. And you’d be standing right outside
of this cubicle. And that was another military-discipline-type thing. It was eyes straight
ahead; it was addressing whoever was doing muster, addressing them properly. So it was
kind of a timed event. For muster you had to be out there a certain length of time, so no
lying in the bed rolling over.
Then you’d do your morning routine—going to the restroom, brushing you teeth,
fixing your hair, doing whatever. And then you would go as a company, the whole group
would march. You’d form up outside and march to breakfast. At breakfast—see,
Orlando was coed. There were men as well as women going through Recruit Training
Command. So that was always a challenge, because you’d end up being out there. The
people in power, the people that were recruit training people, would refer to the men as
“trees,” and we don’t talk to trees.
But there was lot of eyeballing and whatever. You know, you always knew it the
men—and when the men were there, you know, you always wanted to be like standing up
a little bit straighter and whatever, but you never got to speak to these men or whatever.
But they’d form up, and so if we were marching by, it was always eyes straight ahead.
You could get demerits, I guess, for looking over at them or whatever.
So there was that structure, which was kind of odd, because as soon as you got
through boot camp, then you went to “A” School with these guys. So it was like, oh,
well, now you get to communicate with them. You could only talk after you were seated
at breakfast, but you really didn’t want to talk very much, because—I mean, you could
talk in the barracks, unless you were in formation for muster or whatever. But you didn’t
really want to talk too much because you had to concentrate on eating, because you only
had a finite amount of time to eat. And then as a group, everybody got up and left. You
didn’t just leave or meander out. You went in as a group and you left as a group.
Usually one of your shipmates who was in a leadership position would be the last
one in line, and when that person finished eating, you’d better be finished, because you
were leaving. It wasn’t really like they told you had ten minutes or twenty minutes or
whatever; it was all how fast or how slow that person ate their meal.
HT: Did you have drill sergeants or something equivalent?
PC: Equivalent. And that was kind of interesting, too, learning to march. I had been in a
band in high school, so I had had some experience with marching. So again, I felt like,
“Oh, I have a little bit of a heads-up here.” But it was real interesting, because people
don’t realize what their left and their right are. It was like, you lead off with your left
foot, and they would confuse that issue quite a bit. So we marched a lot. And unlike
other services, we marched from Point A to Point B. I think now they actually kind of do
a run.
They always referred to us as ladies and they treated us as ladies. We didn’t carry
weapons. We didn’t have weapons training.
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HT: You had none whatsoever?
PC: None. Although later, when I took my advancement test, I was asked on the
advancement test things about a pistol and that kind of thing, which I read out of a book,
and was able to pass the advancement. I ended up qualifying with a pistol, but I didn’t do
that until much later in a “D” session when I was stationed in Cuba and I thought it might
be a good idea to know how to shoot, when you’re in a Communist country. But, you
know, I never had weapons training at all, which I think is different now.
HT: So that was typical in those days?
PC: Yes. I mean, we were issued gloves. The other thing that I failed to mention when we
talked a little about the staff here, we had international people on our staff. We had a
woman from the British Royal Navy who was like an exchange officer or whatever. And
so that was really interesting to have her. Not that we really had an opportunity to sit and
ask her about her service, but it was kind of neat, because she would come in and she
would instruct us a little bit in the roles that women played in other navies or in other
countries and whatever. And they were pretty much treated the same as we were, and
their uniforms were very similar to ours.
HT: Were there officers as instructors, or were they all enlisted personnel?
PC: They were all enlisted, with the exception—the woman from the British, she was an
officer. I think she was a warrant officer, if I remember correctly, but she was an officer.
But they were all enlisted, the most senior being a chief and the most junior probably
being a second class.
HT: Did you have any free time during those six weeks of boot camp?
PC: Yes. In the evenings, after your classes and after your PT [physical training] and after
dinner and that kind of thing, you had some free time. We actually had washers and
dryers, so we were expected to do our own laundry. There weren’t that many of them,
but it was certainly different than what they related to me Bainbridge was like. I mean,
Bainbridge, I guess they were washing it out on a scrub board, is what some people have
said. So we had washers and dryers, so we had to maintain our uniforms, polish your
shoes, get ready for the next day, whether that means reviewing some of your notes,
because we were tested on all this stuff.
So whether it was reviewing notes or write a quick letter home. We were
encouraged to write home. They did not want our parents calling and saying, “We
haven’t heard from Susie.” And mail call was a highlight of every day, is hearing from
home. So it was great.
And then on the weekends we would get what they referred to as liberty time. We
didn’t leave the base. We got to leave the base one weekend, but for the most part we got
to go to the exchange so we could purchase things that we needed, whether that be—
writing paper or laundry detergent. We could actually purchase candy, but we had to
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consume it. You couldn’t like hang onto it to nibble on all week. And there were people
that it’s a wonder they didn’t get sick with the candy that they would consume in one
afternoon or whatever
And, of course, chapel was a big, big thing on Sunday. I happen to be Catholic,
so they had Mass for us, but then they had other services for others. And we would go as
a group. So the Catholics would form up, and they knew what time they had to be over
there for Mass. And then the Protestants would go. But that was a great time, because it
was stressful. So, you know, you’d go into chapel and you’d hear encouraging words
from the priest or the minister, and you’d get to sing. We got a lot of singing. I think that
may have been a carryover from World War II or whatever. But that was a real team-builder.
You’d learn your songs. When you were marching around, you’d do these little
ditties when you marched. And so that was always a big thing.
I happened to be in boot camp during Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful
Thanksgiving meal. Not like I’m accustomed to at home. It wasn’t my mother’s
pumpkin pie and whatever, but we were given a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We
weren’t allowed to mix with the males, but all the females—because there were many
companies of us, obviously—we all kind of gathered down in a central area that had
picnic tables and whatever, and people had guitars. They weren’t recruits that had them;
it must have been the staff members, because they didn’t tell you, “Bring your guitar or
your musical instrument.” But I remember we kind of had like a songfest, and we sat,
and it was great day. It was different. It was a break in the routine.
And then right before we graduated, we were allowed to go, in uniform, in our
dress blues [formal uniform], to Disney World for the day. And we went with the guys.
Surprise, surprise. We were on the buses with them and everything, which was really
kind of neat. And it was great to be there and to be in uniform, and to be out in public in
uniform. That was the first experience that we had.
HT: Do you recall what graduation day was like?
PC: Yes. It was great. I think I mentioned before, when we were chatting, that my aunt and
uncle—my uncle was a prisoner of war during World War II, for nine months. They
lived in Indian Harbor Beach, Florida, which was not too far from Orlando. And so for
me, graduation was great. My parents came, along with my sister, and my aunt and uncle
came over for it. I didn’t get to see them before graduation. We were on the parade field,
and we marched around and whatever. They saw me before I saw them. As I said, there
was a lot of emphasis on keeping your eyes straight ahead. So I looked, but it was like a
fleeting look to see if I could see them. There was a crowd of people there. The men
were graduating as well as the women, so we were all doing pass in review.
And then after graduation was through, we went over and were able to meet up
with our families. It was just great. They had like a little reception area, or receiving-area-
type thing. It was great to see the family. They all told me I looked better than I had
ever looked, more rested, healthier. I don’t know. It was a very exciting time. As I
mentioned to you earlier, that’s when I found out that my aunt had actually been a
WAVE, and I’d never known that, because my uncle married her long after her military
days, and his as well. So it was great.
12
HT: So what happened after graduation? Did you go home?
PC: I did. What they do in the navy, and they probably do it in other services as well, they
encourage you to take leave. You know, you get thirty days a year, and they certainly
didn’t encourage you to take thirty days, but they did encourage you to take a week or
two and go home. And it really is a benefit, because it does give you a little time to
decompress and to get ready for your next challenge, which for a lot of us was to go to an
“A” School. Some didn’t. Some went a variety of places, but I was selected to go to
Hospital Corps “A” School.
HT: What does the “A” stand for?
PC: It’s just your basic. You know, they have the “C” School, the Hospital Corps “C”
School. And believe me, they don’t have B’s. But the “C” Schools are your more
specialized, to become an X-ray technician, to become an internal medicine technician, or
a surgical technician, or a pharmacy tech. That’s “C” School. But “A” School is the
basic, what every Hospital Corpsman goes through. Even though I had a medical
background, I went to “A” School.
So my folks, because they picked me up in Orlando, I was home, and went home.
I chose—I think they wanted us to like take two weeks. But I mentioned, I was twenty-two
when I went in, and so I got to looking at that and I thought, “You know, here we
are, the beginning of December. I would much rather be home for Christmas than home
the beginning of December and seeing everyone,” even though it was great to see them.
So I made a phone call when I got home, and they didn’t tell me I could do this,
but I just kind of figured it out on my own. And so I called the Hospital Corps School at
Great Lakes [Illinois], and I asked them, “What will be the policy? Will you remain
open? Will I go to school straight through Christmas? What will be the policy?”
And they were very helpful. They said, “We will form a company probably right
before Christmas, and then we will break, because that gives our instructors the
opportunity, because they’ve been here all year, to be with their families. So we will
break for two—.”
[End Tape 1, Side A—Begin Tape 1, Side B]
PC: So they gave me the opportunity to cut my leave short right after boot camp. The airline
ticket was paid for, and whatever, to fly up to Great Lakes to form the company, and then
at my own expense to take my leave during Christmas, which was great, I mean, because
I really enjoyed that much more than—and so I did that. So I wasn’t home long. I didn’t
stay home long. Once I figured out I could do that, they all agreed that that would be the
thing to do. So I was only home a few days, and then left for Great Lakes, Illinois. I
flew up there for Hospital Corps “A” School.
HT: Did you request to attend this Hospital “A” Corps School?
13
PC: Yes. My whole background had always been—and my original thoughts were that I
wanted to serve four years in the navy, get out, and go to nursing school. It certainly
didn’t turn out that way, but that was my original plan when I went in the navy. I ended
up not pursuing nursing, but pursuing hospital administration. I obviously didn’t just
serve four years; I served twenty-four. So that kind of changed.
So I went to Great Lakes, my second airplane trip, and I went to Chicago, and
arrived at Great Lakes.
HT: Great Lakes, Illinois.
PC: Yes.
HT: Right outside of Chicago. It’s right on the water. Huge medical treatment facility there,
probably the largest hospital I’ve ever seen. But the barracks I moved in, which they
called the WAVE cage [housing for WAVES], was a new building. Now, the barracks
that some of my shipmates lived in, the males, they were in World War II-era buildings,
because now it’s all new, but back then the WAVE cage was new, but the men were in
the World War II-era.
Our classrooms were in the World War II-era buildings, which was a challenge. I
mean, it was cold. Chicago is known as the Windy City, and it was very, very cold. I
can tell you that that blue wool overcoat that they gave me that weighed a ton, I mean, I
kept thinking, “This is such a heavy coat,” it served me well in Great Lakes. It was very
toasty in Great Lakes, and I appreciated it there.
But I got there. There was snow on the ground. When I graduated in April of that
year, the snow was still on the ground. So it was like a frozen tundra. But Corps School
was a great, great experience.
HT: What type of classes did you attend while you were at “A” School?
PC: They were centered around teaching us to be Hospital Corpsmen, and the Hospital Corps
has a really proud and rich tradition. They’re the only enlisted corps in the navy, and
they’re the most highly decorated. So they, of course, taught us our history, the history of
the Hospital Corps, but we were also taught how to take care of patients, and how to
suture, and how to give shots, and how to dispense medication, whether it’s in pill form
or liquid form, and how to give a bed bath. We learned this by doing it to each other.
And how to correctly maintain a patient’s health record, making those entries so that
they’re legally correct.
Even though I had some experience and I’d actually gone through training at
Lynchburg General, this was much more in detail. And of course, Vietnam was winding
down, but it is still used as an example. Many of my instructors—many of the male
instructors, I should say—had been in Vietnam, because Hospital Corps in the navy takes
care of the Marine Corps. They are their medical. So many of my instructors had been
with the Marines and had been in Vietnam. So of course, that was a day-to-day example
for us, to know what adverse conditions would be like and what you hoped for, and the
sterile field that you hoped to maintain, that kind of thing. So it was very in the forefront.
14
But it was a great opportunity and I learned a great deal. I mean, I thought I knew
a lot about medicine until I went there, but I learned a great deal. And I felt confident. I
mean, I had a sense of confidence before I got there that I knew medicine already, but
when I graduated, I knew. I mean, I really felt confident that I could go and do and
perform my duties.
When I went in the service, I went in as an A-1, which was a seaman recruit, and
then when I went to Hospital Corps School, I was an HR, which was a hospital recruit. I
graduated from Hospital Corps School, was meritoriously promoted to third class, which
was great pay-wise. It was wonderful. So I think that they recognized the confidence
that I was feeling.
I took on a leadership role. I was the WAVE platoon leader of my company. We
started off with about fourteen women. We ended up with eight in our class. It was a
fairly small class, and we lost them for various reasons; some medical, some academic.
Some had tragedies at home and had to leave for emergency leave, and when they came
back, they were gone for too long to keep up, because it was pretty quick.
HT: So it sounded like you had both clinical instruction as well as academic instruction.
PC: Definitely, yes. And we actually went up and worked in the hospital, which I just fell in
love. I mean, I thought, “Man, this is great.” Lynchburg General Hospital now is a
pretty large hospital. When I worked there, it was very small. I had worked in the
emergency room and intensive care, so I opted and requested to work in the emergency
room at Great Lakes. We saw all kinds of things. So we actually did our duty in the
hospital, and I worked up with patient care, too.
All this is being evaluated. Your instructors were right there, and they were
watching what you were doing. Plus, the other corpsmen and nurses were showing and
teaching, and they were there to assist you. So you weren’t in there on your own, taking
care of this patient, because a lot of folks that went to Corps School did not have a
medical background, so they taught everyone, even though some of may have some
medical background; some didn’t. In looking back, it was really amazing to me how they
could bring us all along at the same time. I wasn’t bored, and the novice or the person
who had never worked, they weren’t given too much information too fast either.
HT: Did you have doctors as instructors, or nurses, or both?
PC: We had nurses. Traditionally, the Navy Nurse Corps has trained Hospital Corpsmen.
That has always been and will probably always be. Sometimes people want to paint an
adversarial role between the corpsmen and the nurses, because corpsmen can do a lot
more than nurses can. Nurses can’t suture. Legally, they cannot suture. Corpsmen can.
Because we aren’t licensed. So sometimes people try to paint it as being adversarial. I
didn’t feel that way.
My Corps School company commander—that was her title—was Claudette
Clunan. At that time she was a lieutenant commander. She retired from the navy a
captain, and we still correspond. She was one of my first mentors, I’m sure, in the navy.
There was a male chief corpsman who did all the administrative stuff in the military side
15
of the house stuff. Because we were inspected. Our uniforms were inspected, and we
had barracks inspections and whatever.
But going to “A” School was totally different. As I said, we were there with the
men that had graduated from boot camp the same time we did. Now, some of the men
did not go to boot camp in Orlando, because they also had boot camp at that time in Great
Lakes. Some had gone to school there, and hadn’t left; they had gone to boot camp and
now they were going to “A” School there.
Our class was male and female. In fact, I met my husband there. We had a lot of
what they call Corps School romances, and we actually had a few weddings, which I
thought was a little bit abrupt, but anyway. But I met my future husband. We didn’t get
married till four years after, because I was more conservative than that. I wasn’t going to
be doing some wedding in a chapel while I was at Corps School or whatever.
It was a great time to form that team. The only problem was, after we graduated,
many of us didn’t—some, they went to larger duty stations, actually with other
classmates. I went to a smaller duty station, and I didn’t have a classmate there. But I
had kind of stayed in the vicinity, which, you know, we kept in touch with and whatever.
Some of the highlights of Corps School for me was on a really cold, cold night,
and I can’t remember the date, in fact, we got word before classes late that afternoon that
some POWs were coming back that evening, and they would be arriving at Glenview Air
Station [Illinois], which was just a short distance from Great Lakes, and they would be
motored over to Great Lakes, where they would be evaluated. I mean, they were literally
coming back from Vietnam. So they would be there and be evaluated at the hospital.
So we all just, impromptu, decided—and we weren’t even sure of the time,
because of all the time differences, and they were coming by military aircraft, but we all
decided that we needed to greet these people. We needed to welcome them home. And
so we did. And even as cold as I mentioned it was, we were out there, all of us out there,
in our uniforms, lining the street. They would pull into Great Lakes to go through, of
course, the gate guards or whatever, and then it’s a straight shot into the hospital. The
hospital sits way back, though, and all the barracks and all the classrooms and whatever
are in between.
We lined the street and waited for hours for these people. And the word would
pass, “They’re at Glenview.” A roar would go up, and we’d be cheering or whatever.
They spoke to us just a brief few moments, you know, and thanked us and whatever. But
it was such—I mean, I really felt like this is what it’s all about, and to welcome them
home, and for me personally to know that my uncle had had a welcome home very
similar to that, it was really touching for me to be able to take part in that, to see that little
bit.
I never met them personally. They were whisked away to a private part of the
hospital where their families were waiting for them. I remember they came out, and
although they were very, very thin, I remember thinking, boy, how tan they were. But, of
course, they had come from a whole different—and I’m sure seeing the snow was pretty
shocking for them and whatever. But that was one of the highlights, I think.
HT: What was a typical day like at the “A” School? Was it a little less strenuous than—
16
PC: Very, very much so. I had two roommates. There were three of us to a room, and then
you had to go down the hall to the restroom, to the bathroom or whatever, to the head, as
you’d say. But it was almost like a college campus. I never went away to school. I
never went away to college, but that’s how I would kind of envision it. We had lockers,
but you could have pictures out, you know, family pictures or whatever. You could have
your own personal items in the barracks. You could have a radio. Most people didn’t
have TVs, because there was a TV in the lounge. You were only there for sixteen weeks,
I think it was, so weren’t going to take a whole lot of stuff there.
But we’d get up on our own. There was no more reveille or whatever. So you’d
get up on your own, and as WAVE platoon leader, I wanted to make sure everybody was
up. So, I mean, I kind of held my own. You know, I’d knock on doors as I was going
down to the head, to make sure everybody was awake. We’d go to breakfast on our own.
We did not march to and from, but once the class formed up, and you’d go to your first
class, and we were all in that together, our company went to each of their classes
together. So when we went anywhere as a company, we would form up and march.
So that meant at lunch you’d march up to the hospital, and then you’d break. We
had to keep track of folks. If people needed to go to medical or whatever, the women
would get—the navy refers to these permission papers as chits. I don’t know where that
jargon came from, but they’d get a form from there, a little piece of paper that I would
sign, that would sign them out of the company at a certain time. And then they would go
to medical, and then when they left medical, they’d be signed out of medical and they
would bring that piece of paper back to me.
So in every class that we went to, instead of calling roll, which would take time,
the WAVE platoon leader and the male counterpart platoon leader would say who was
absent, and then we knew everybody else was present. They didn’t do roll per se. I kind
of kept track of the women, and I had to report that to the chief. I ended up doing some
counseling. That was the beginning of counseling peers and that kind of thing.
But our time was—you know, we went to class, and then after class was over,
going to dinner you did on your own. You didn’t form up and march or whatever. You
just went to dinner. And we ate at the hospital, in the chow hall. So you’d go to dinner
with your friends. There was no time limit on that. There was always a time limit on
breakfast and lunch because you had to get to class.
But on weekends our time was our own, and we would venture out. The train
station was right across the street, so we’d venture out and explore the area. But even in
the evenings, people actually had visitors, family members or whatever that lived near
there, or if they had a family member that was in Chicago for the night on business or
something. I know several of my classmates had family members visit them during the
week. You know, we were expected to do our homework and be prepared for class.
HT: So there was no evening duty as such?
PC: Well, we still stood the fire watches, but once you went into the hospital setting, then you
stood duty there. I don’t think any of us worked nights, but we would work shifts. So it
was really, more or less, you had control of your time, but it wasn’t like going to college
and deciding you were going to lay out and not go to school for the day or whatever. We
were expected to be there and to be accounted for.
17
HT: I imagine those sixteen weeks were somewhat intensive, because it was such a short
period of time, you have so much to learn.
PC: Oh, definitely, definitely.
HT: After you graduated from “A” School, where was your first duty station?
PC: First duty station was the naval hospital at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. Yeah,
I joined the navy to see the world, filled out my dream sheet when I got ready to graduate
from Hospital Corps School, and said I’d love to go to the West Coast. Born and raised
in Virginia, and end up at Quantico. [laughs] So that was pretty interesting. And I was
there from April of ’73 until March of ’75.
HT: What was duty like there?
PC: It was great. That hospital, the building still exists, but now it’s a clinic. They actually
don’t have a hospital there. But being a woman, being a Corps WAVE, and that’s how
they referred to us—as I mentioned, I was meritoriously promoted to third class right
from Corps School, so I arrived there as a third-class petty officer, and I was assigned to
the labor and delivery area, which was a pretty busy place. You know, here you are in a
Marine Corps base, and Vietnam has ended. Everybody’s getting on with their lives. So
labor and delivery was a hopping place. It was very busy. We had two delivery rooms
and we were very busy.
I was a senior corpsman there. I, again, had a leadership role. I lived in the
barracks, and the barracks were right behind the hospital. In fact, it used to be the old
nurses’ quarters. It was on the Potomac [River]. But I had my own room, individual
rooms. Well, later I had a roommate, but for the most part, it was individual rooms.
I was also in charge—I was what they referred to as the master-of-arms of the
WAVES barracks. That was a collateral duty.
HT: And what were those duties as master-of-arms?
PC: Those duties were to maintain—I did the inspections in the barracks, maintained
cleanliness, maintained order. If things needed to be repaired, I would report that to the
proper authorities so they could be repaired. We could go and come in that barracks at
will. A lot of folks worked different shifts, so you were always cognizant of that, so you
weren’t slamming doors. But if there was a problem with slamming doors, people would
come and expect me to resolve that.
HT: Was this duty on top of your Corps duty?
PC: Yes.
HT: So it was an additional duty.
18
PC: It was just kind of an additional duty. And then I also stood duty at the hospital. But as I
said, it was not a daily routine that I had to go around and fuss at people and tell them to
turn their music down or whatever. It was a rare thing. People were pretty much
responsible adults, and that’s what we were trying to teach, was people to be responsible.
They could go out on dates, they could stay out all night, they could do whatever. They
could not bring their male guests back to their room, but they could bring their male
guests back to the common area, the TV room, or the sun porch. We had huge Monopoly
tournaments out at the sun porch.
Quantico was great. I think everybody that I know of, anyway, always thinks that
their first duty station was great because it’s all new to you. I wasn’t too far from home,
which made it great. My folks actually came by to see. My father couldn’t believe that I
could decorate my room any way I wanted. It wasn’t the navy he remembered. You
know, that kind of thing.
HT: Did you work with just military, or were there any civilian doctors and nurses?
PC: There were civilian nurses there, but a lot of them had been from the military but had
gotten out. As I mentioned earlier, the navy, if you became pregnant, or if you adopted
children, or if you married a man that had dependent children, you were forced out of the
military, no matter how much training you had, no matter what your job was. And so a
lot of these women, these civilian women that I worked with, that is exactly what had
happened to them. They had married and become pregnant, and that ended their naval
careers. Many of them were navy. I think most of them [were].
HT: So they joined the civil service.
PC: Yes. They went into civil service jobs. But the great thing—and then I worked with
military nurses as well. So, in Quantico—unlike Great Lakes, which was a huge medical
treatment facility—Quantico was very small. We didn’t have individual rooms. Here
these women would have these babies, and they were in like little cubicles very much like
what I had experienced in boot camp, where they took an open bay area and they put
these cubicles that would go up about to your chin, to give you some privacy, but no
doors on these. But there was a curtain that you could pull around a bed or whatever.
They still had those.
HT: But you still have the noises from all that surrounds you.
PC: But you had all the noises. And on the other wards besides labor and delivery, because
we had an orthopedic ward and we had a medical ward and a surgical ward, they were all
open bay. Now, as a corpsman, I can tell you that it’s so much easier to maintain a ward
like that, because at night the corpsman is kind of it on the ward. You may have thirty
patients, and the nurse will be roaming. She’ll be carrying the narcotic keys maybe, but
she’ll be covering several different wards on P.M. or on night shift.
So, clinically, I can tell you that it was great. Open bay wards were wonderful
because you put your patients with their IVs or that were sicker up near the nurses’
station, so you could look right out and see. We were still using the glass IV bottles. So
19
you could look out and see. Because nowadays when you’re in the hospital, they hook it
up to a pump, and that pump will alarm when it goes dry or whatever. We didn’t do that.
We didn’t have that there. So we had our glass IV bottles, and we were monitoring the
drip, and we were making sure that the patients are all taken care of.
So as far as clinically, I thought it was great. No privacy for you, you know, for
the patient, but in a way it was good also, like on orthopedic wards, so many of those—
and they were mostly Marines; there were some sailors, but so many of those guys were
in there for a long period of time with their broken leg or broken whatever, and so they
formed friendships so they didn’t get depressed. They may have gotten somewhat
depressed, but they had activity. There was a guy in the bunk next to them they could
talk to. They weren’t isolated in room with maybe just one other roommate, you know,
type thing.
So, I mean, it was challenging. It had its challenges and whatever. Because
Quantico also is where they trained the officers, part of our responsibility was to provide
medical support for their Officer Candidate School. And so when these Marines were
like out in the field and whatever, we had to provide corpsmen out there.
That was the first time I drove what we referred to as the cracker box ambulance,
which was made famous with M*A*S*H, you know, that type of vehicle. It’s an all
terrain vehicle. Because when you go out in the field, you’re out. This isn’t in your
backyard. You’re going miles and miles and miles. It’s a huge base.
So you go out there, and if they get injured or whatever, then you would transport
them back. So I started getting outside the hospital by being an ambulance attendant or
ambulance driver, which is something I had never done before.
HT: Were you all rotating shifts?
PC: Yes, we were.
HT: Eight on?
PC: It was usually, you know, you’d do a day shift or a P.M. shift or a night shift. To go to
P.M. or nights, you had to have a certain level of proficiency. As a senior corpsman, I
was responsible for making sure that in labor and delivery, when I worked there, I was
responsible for making sure that the Corps—it was Corps WAVES. The men did not
work labor and delivery. Not that they weren’t qualified to do that, but for the patients’
comfort, they weren’t expected to do that.
And so therefore, I would say ninety-nine percent of the women who got stationed
there, if you talk to almost anyone in my era, they’re going to tell you that they spent
some time doing labor and delivery, because that was an automatic. You had to go to
labor and delivery for at least a certain period of time. I was responsible for training
these women to make sure that they could maintain a sterile field.
So our training continued. I mean, Corps School was a great foundation, and we
built on that foundation all along. We relied very heavily on the nurses, on our senior
corpsmen to provide that training.
HT: How did the corpsmen get along in general with the nurses and the doctors?
20
PC: I think we worked as a team. I mean, team-building began with Corps School, I think.
And that’s why I kind of think this day and age just trying to say that we want to keep
women separate from men in training situations is ridiculous. We grow up with the—you
know, I just don’t agree with that philosophy, that they would separate that. But some
branches of service still do. Marine Corps is a great example of that. They still do. But
the Coast Guard has—I mean, the women in the Coast Guard can have any job in the
Coast Guard. So that’s the other spectrum. It’s the other end of the spectrum.
But we started building our teams, I think, in Corps School, and we continued it.
We were a healthcare team, and that included the doctor, the nurse, the dietician, the
radiologist, and that’s really how the medical department in the navy perceives us. We
are a team. I think, to compare it to my civilian experience, I was respected for the
knowledge, where in the civilian sector the doctors, I don’t know how much respect they
had for me. Maybe they did. They knew me personally, but by my uniform, by my rank
and my insignia on my uniform, they knew that I had a certain level of expertise, and I
was respected for that.
HT: Speaking of uniform, what type of uniform did you wear at Quantico?
PC: At Quantico we wore usually our uniform, but they would put a smock over it. Now, of
course, in the delivery room we were in scrubs, you know, with no rank insignia, and we
would actually put tape on our scrubs and write our name in Magic Marker. We didn’t
even have a nametag that we wore on the scrubs, because you changed scrubs.
So I wore a kind of smocklike uniform, and then they changed the uniforms to
medical, and they came out an all-white pantsuit. It was like a blouse—not really a
blouse. It was almost like a jumper-type thing. It came down, it had good large pockets
and whatever, and white pants. They looked like civilian nursing uniforms or whatever.
And so we wore those, but the weird part about that was, if you were enlisted, you wore
black shoes with that white uniform. If you were an E-7 or above, male or female, you
wore white shoes, and that included the doctors and nurses. The doctors didn’t wear
those white uniforms. Also the navy had a white uniform with an open-collar shirt and
white pants or a white skirt.
HT: No hat, I assume.
PC: Now, going to and from our cars or the barracks or whatever, we were always covered, so
you could salute. But in the medical treatment facility itself, no, you’d never be covered.
In fact, it’s kind of a tradition that out of respect for the dead and dying, or the sick or
whatever, that you would remove your cover [hat] as soon as you came in to a medical
treatment facility.
HT: After Quantico, what was your next duty station?
PC: Well, from Quantico I went to Naval Hospital Orlando [Florida]. So you see, I’m getting
a pattern here. I’m an East Coast sailor. It was kind of weird, because at Quantico they
originally gave me orders—the detailers [navy personnel who issue assignments] are
21
located up in Arlington, Virginia, and they originally gave me orders to go to Orlando to
teach. By the way, I made second class while I was at Quantico. I don’t remember the
exact date, but before March of ’75 I was E-5.
So once I made second class, the detailers asked me if I would like to go back to
Orlando, to RTC [Recruit Training Command], and teach first aid. And I remember—I
mean, the woman I was going to relieve, I remember her. She taught me just a few years
before that. So I was like, “Sure.” That was a great opportunity.
When I got there, and because they had not sent me to Instructor School before I
got there, I missed out on that opportunity, because Orlando RTC did not want to pay to
send me to Instructor School somewhere else, in Memphis or Portsmouth or wherever.
They felt like the detailers should have covered that cost.
HT: You mentioned detailers.
PC: The detailers are the people who assign you to—and they’re corpsmen. They are fellow
corpsmen, but they’re senior. They’re chiefs.
HT: They’re in personnel, I would assume.
PC: They work at the Bureau of Naval Personnel. So it was a great opportunity, but I missed
out on it, because even though I arrived there ready and eager to do it, they had not sent
me to the proper school before getting there. RTC said, “We’re not sending you to
school.” And they ended up keeping the woman there that had been my instructor. I
don’t think she wanted to leave either, to tell you the truth.
But I ended up with a good job anyway. I ended up being the senior Corps
WAVE at the Internal Medicine Clinic there. It was wonderful working with a great
group of doctors and corpsmen. I didn’t stay there very long, because—and this is a
perfect example of how the needs of the navy supersede the needs of the individual. I
mentioned that I met the man that I married at Corps School. We continued our
relationship even though he went to Key West, Florida. That was his first duty station.
He had a great first duty station.
He went through a program. He went to Key West and made second class. We
were contemporaries. We were making rates about the same time, because we were
meritoriously promoted to third right out of Corps School, together. So he made second
class, and he applied for and was accepted in the navy’s program to educate nurses. So
he was accepted, and this was a wonderful program. It was called the NENEP [Navy
Enlisted Nursing Education] Program, and I’m not sure what all the initials stand for. It
was the Navy Education Nursing Program, something. I don’t know.
But anyway, it was great because it paid his tuition and it paid him his E-5, or
HM-2 salary, and he carried a green ID card all while he went to college. So it was a
wonderful program. And they moved him to where he went to school, and they moved
him when he graduated and was commissioned.
So we had planned on getting married. I knew that my tour at Quantico was
going to be winding up. It ended up ending a little bit shorter because I got that
opportunity. I say I got the opportunity; I was told to go to Orlando. I didn’t really
know, but I wasn’t expecting orders that soon. So we had planned on getting married in
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May of ’75, and my orders came through in February. I mean, like I got these orders like
in February and I had to be gone by March. I had to be in Orlando.
So that postponed our wedding, obviously, because my husband had been
accepted to school. He had just started schooling in Kentucky. So he couldn’t transfer
schools. He wasn’t my husband at that time; he was my fiancé. But anyway, he couldn’t
transfer schools, so we postponed our wedding. I went to Orlando. Then they said,
“Well, you’re not qualified for this job.” I was not a happy camper at this point, but
anyway, I lucked out, though, because the doctors in the Internal Medicine Clinic were
phenomenal. And there was one doctor in particular that was in charge of that clinic who
assisted me in getting orders.
So I was only there from March of ’75 to December of ’75, because he saw the
situation I was in and he understood that. He was a captain in the navy. I later ran into
him in Europe. It was great. So he helped me to work with the system to get orders.
And what I did was, I reenlisted for orders, and the navy allows you to do that
occasionally. I had never done it before.
HT: What does that mean exactly?
PC: I signed up for four more years if they would send me to Naval Hospital Memphis,
Tennessee, which was three hours from where my fiancé was going to school. And it
works out they won’t do that unless there is a billet or a job for you, and they knew. The
detailers kind of knew that they had done me wrong, I think. I had gone and that proved
to me a valuable lesson: that you accept it and you go, and you do the best you can, and
it’ll all turn out right in the end, which it did.
But it was a big discipline to me to end up with those quick orders. I think I
would have been better satisfied if I had gotten there and actually assumed the job that
they had rushed me to get there to assume. But when that fell through, I was really not
too pleased. In fact, I tried to get the navy at that point—I told them I would drive myself
and use my own leave to go to Memphis if they would just modify my orders to
Memphis, Tennessee. But they weren’t going to do that. They modified them to the
Naval Hospital Orlando. But it all worked out.
So, after a short stay in Orlando, I ended up at the Naval Regional Medical Center
in Memphis, in December. The other good thing about it was Dr. Smith worked it out so
that I left right before Christmas, and, of course, my husband had like three weeks off
from school, so we had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s together, and then I
reported in in January.
HT: January ’74?
PC: Of ’76, to Memphis. Because I left Orlando in December of ’75. So I was at Memphis
till June of ’77 when my husband graduated from college.
HT: What was the name of the college that he attended?
PC : He attended Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. This is a funny one. He
grew up in Pennsylvania, and his biggest desire, he had some college before he came in
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the service, but his biggest desire was to go to one of those Ivy League Pennsylvania
schools, but he didn’t have the money to do that. So he went in the navy to get his GI
Bill, so he did continue school, as many of us did. So when the navy accepted him to this
program, they sent him this list of schools that he could apply to. So he applied to several
of them, because they also warned him not to make it too narrow because this money was
allotted and he needed to get into school. He couldn’t wait years to see if he was going to
be accepted. He needed to be accepted fairly quickly.
So he applied to a half dozen or so of these schools, some of which he didn’t even
know where they were, because they did everything. The navy said, “Murray State
University, Murray, Kentucky. This is who you write. This is your application—blah,
blah.” So he did that, and he did it for the University of Pennsylvania and he did it for
other schools.
Now, the first school that responded to him was Murray State. So, being a little
naïve, he told the navy, “I’ve been accepted at Murray State in Murray, Kentucky. I
don’t know quite where that is, but I’ve got an acceptance letter.” You know, whatever.
And they’re like, “Good.”
Now, he thought that if he got other acceptance letters, because it wasn’t time for
him to transfer yet, or whatever, that he could change that. No. So when he got his
notification that he had been accepted at University of Pennsylvania, the navy said,
“You’re going to Murray State.” It was a lot cheaper. Even though it was out-of-state
tuition, it was much, much cheaper. But I think all things, again, work out for the best.
The dean of nursing at Murray State University was a captain, retired, Navy Nurse Corps.
He didn’t know that. None of us knew that. But that’s why that was on that; she had
made sure that her school was on that approved list or whatever. And Murray was great.
It was a wonderful school. He enjoyed it. He thoroughly enjoyed it.
HT: Was this a four-year program?
PC: It was, but because of his previous college, he got through in like two and a half years.
He went to summer school and finished up really quickly, which was to the navy’s
benefit, because they were paying or whatever, so he was able—
[Continues in Part Two]