Oral history interview with Nancy M. Christ, 2008

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WOMEN VETERANS HISTORICAL PROJECT
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Nancy Christ
INTERVIEWER: Therese Strohmer
DATE: March 23, 2008
[Begin Interview]
TS: So we’re just testing here. And this is Therese Strohmer, and today is March 23. I am in Wilmington, North Carolina. This is an oral history interview for the Women Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Nancy, go ahead and say your name the way you would like it to be on—you can just sit how you are—how you’d like it to be on your collection. Like, you just want to have a form—your formal—
NC: Nancy. M as in Margaret.
TS: Okay.
NC: Christ.
TS: Okay.
NC: C-h-r-i-s-t.
TS: That sounds terrific then. All right, Nancy, we’re going to go ahead and start out and we’ll talk a little bit about your background, where you were born and where you grew up. Just start with that.
NC: Okay. I was born in North Brunswick Township, New Jersey, and stayed there until I went into nurse’s training in 1949 in South Jersey, to Ann May School of Nursing.
TS: Well, before we get to your nursing school, what—When you were growing up, what kind of work did your parents do?
NC: My father was a butcher. My mother was a wonderful, wonderful homemaker, which we don’t see much anymore, right—
TS: That’s true.2
NC: —Therese?
TS: True.
NC: However, in her later years, she did run—she did work in the North Brunswick Township tax office and ran for office, and so we were campaigning for her and she won. So she did have a career after the kids were out of the nest and was tax collector for the North Brunswick Township. Isn’t that wonderful?
TS: That’s terrific.
NC: And dad retired from butcher. [laughs]
TS: I was always fascinated by the butcher in my hometown. I thought that was always—It was always fun to go in and get something picked out. You know, that was fun. Yeah, now—
NC: You want to know some of the cuts of meats?
TS: You go right ahead and tell me. [laughter] I’m sure you know pretty well.
NC: No, I’d probably miss some of them. We always went down to his butcher shop. And we always said to the kids, “Come on. Let’s get a free sandwich.” And dad would make us a bologna sandwich. You know, well, sure, it was free.
TS: No kidding. Okay. Well now, do you have any brothers and sisters?
NC: I have an older sister, Irene, about four years my senior. She’s in New Jersey. I have a twin sister who’s in the hill country of Texas now. Like I am trying to be a very wonderful tar heel, she’s trying to be a wonderful Texan.
TS: How’s that working out?
NC: Well, she’s been there so long you may—you never tell—there’s a saying that you can take the gal out of New Jersey but you cannot take the New Jersey out of the gal, and I think that’s true for both of us. And I have a younger brother, Russell, who passed away in 1963 at the age of sixty. Family of four.
TS: Family of four kids and—
NC: Four kids.
TS: Very good. Did you—Can you tell us a little bit about growing up? What kind of games you played or what you did, maybe what your neighborhood looked like?
NC: It was rural. Loads of woods, so it was not uncommon to have us come home with frogs and things like this for Mother. We loved to play in the woods and climb trees. We also had 3
industry, which was—and you know New Jersey’s a big industrial state now—it was called Personal Products. This was a branch of J&J, Johnson & Johnson. An Ethicon suture building was right down the road from us. The big highway, [US] Route 1, that traversed from New England all the way to Florida was only two blocks away. It was—so we were on a major highway yet out in rural area. And there was this great big open grass field to play in, and Lynn and I were sports women. We loved to play with the boys. So we were playing football and baseball out there. Outdoors more than indoors, this type of growing up. Well, no computers, no television, basically. Yeah, that’s right. It’s hard to think that way, isn’t it?
TS: Do you remember games that you played or were they mostly just sports-type things that you played? What kind of sports would you be playing?
NC: Football and baseball. Then, of course, we played with the neighborhood kids all the old-type games of dodge ball, the hopscotch. We had a concrete pathway outside our house and we’d use chalk and make your hopscotch, you know, your little crosses. So we played hopscotch and kick the can, and anything you’d hear from the olden years, of all outdoors, from morning until night. Wonderful, wonderful.
TS: Yeah. So would you say that that sums up your childhood? That you had a—
NC: Yes, it was wonderful.
TS: Yes.
NC: Yes. It was all kid stuff and no stress. No stress that I can tell you. When you think of us growing up in the Depression years of the thirties with dad being a butcher, basically, as an individual, I felt no stress from this. He certainly—Dad and I’m sure Mom did, but there was always food on the table and we didn’t get caught up in so many of the hardships that people did, which is kind of, you know, it’s interesting to be so close, closely united with it all. Which only goes to show you it can be in the immediate area and not experiencing the same rough times that other people earn. It has to do with the circumstances and what is what.
TS: Being a butcher probably helped a lot.
NC: Sure. Well, he could negotiate [with] A&P. Are you familiar with the old A&P markets? It was right next door, so he could exchange there. Now, I know for a fact that back in those days they had black market, et cetera, and my dad never got into any of the black market things, but some individuals did. Of course, that’s an old story-type thing. From black market in Vietnam, you’ve got the black market today, and you had the black market in Vietnam, et cetera. [TS coughs] So we didn’t—I guess it was kind of interesting—difficult to keep your nose clean back in those days. You know, you read about suicides and everything like that. And look where we are today. We’re sort of talking recession, aren’t we, at this point in time.
TS: True.
NC: And that’s only eighty years later.4
TS: So what about high school? Where did you attend high school?
NC: I attended high school in New Brunswick, New Brunswick High. That was a very integrated school. What’s interesting, Therese, when you grow up—our town, our little borough of Milltown, which was right across the street from North Brunswick Township, I can see today—it wasn’t until around the eighties or nineties that I came to realize that my own little next door neighborhood town ,where I played and I grew up with, my church, et cetera, never had blacks. Our church had an oriental couple, and I understand that they really had a difficult time in our church. But I never experienced the discriminatory stuff that goes on like some of those kids when they went to school, there were no blacks in the neighborhood. I was used to blacks in my own North Brunswick Township school. Plus, particularly in New Brunswick, as one of your bigger cities in the state of New Jersey—when you came out of New York City you went through Newark, New Jersey, Elizabeth to New Brunswick, to our capital Trenton, that skinny part of the state—and so several of my very best friends were black in high school. So I never felt the discriminatory stuff that was—that was going on and that is still going on today.
And look at what is going on in our political scene today. And I think it’s wonderful the way [Barack] Obama speaks to it, get it out there, and don’t put it under the carpet. Bring it right out in the open. And we’re in a free nation—liberty and justice for all. And don’t put it under the carpet again like it has been in the past, et cetera. Face the issue, that’s growth. Boy, I sure went off on a tangent on that, Therese. [TS laughs] Are we ever going to get done? But it gives you a little idea of—That’s where I went to high school. And I was in sports there, too.
TS: What years were you there?
NC: Nineteen forty—1946 to ‘49.
TS: Okay.
NC: We had juniors—juniors—no, sophomore, junior, senior. We had a junior high school where you went—you went from grammar school, first to eighth grade, and then ninth grade was a junior high school, and then you had your three years of senior high school, which was the junior, sophomore, and senior. And there we just continued—I always have to talk in terms of we. It’s just difficult for me to leave my twin out of it. She was my womb mate for—[laughs].
TS: No kidding.
NC: Yeah, right.
TS: So you played some sports in high school. What kind of sports did you like to play?
NC: Very much into the gym, gymnastics. Was on the tumbling squad for the football team. Also involved with the YM—YWCA [Young Women’s Christian Association] at that time. So we had basketball, where we played competitively within the state, you know, with teams that were up [state?]. So certainly, once again, outdoors all the time. 5
TS: Did you have a favorite subject?
NC: Favorite subject. No, I really have to say not really. I enjoyed all of it. I don’t remember really begrudging going to school. Of course, I got into all of the little devilish stuff. Back then you had truant officers, so of course one day [I] played hooky from school, but I was scared the whole time I was out [laughs] from fear I’d be caught. And sure enough it came around, because then, in those days, they could monitor the children a lot closer. And when I didn’t show up for one of the classes in the afternoon and they discovered I was gone the whole day, well, then mother got a call, and of course it was addressed. And that was the end of my hooky days.
TS: Do you remember why you were playing hooky?
NC: Just the kids, my local—you know, the school friends were going to go to one of our competitive schools that we played football against in South River. One of the students was old enough to have a truck and drive. So we just decided that we would take the day off and go visit the kids at the other school. I mean it was real smart to go to another school to see the kids. [laughs] I mean, boy that was real criminal activity wasn’t it? [chuckles]
TS: That’s true.
NC: Just the—certainly were—My twin and I were far from being just laid back and not doing very much. We were always involved in things. So with this type of background, you can see why my life took its path the way it did with adventure, et cetera, because I just kind of enjoyed all of that stuff. And we tried, had the good background from my parents, knew you were doing—you know you’re doing wrong, but god darn it, there’s just something about that element of risk, to see if you could get away with something. So I don’t know how normal children are if they have never done something that they weren’t supposed to do. Do you? [laughs]
TS: When you talk about your twin, could you describe your personalities, if you know any of the similarities and differences you had in your personalities between you and your twin.
NC: Basically, we’re identical. And in the younger years—in fact, this picture here is more of what more of what my twin looks like today, because now I push my hair back, but you’ll notice she has—this is me and I have the bangs, see, and that’s what she looks like today. She still has the bangs. So basically, now I look more like my older sister who pulls her hair back. And we have the little gray coming in. But if you didn’t have a long conversation and get to know me as much as you are today, and it was a hit and miss type thing, our mannerisms are the same. Our speaking voice is the same. If you talked to her on the phone you would think it was me.
We never chose the same friends, girlfriends or boyfriends, never had any of that vying. And I don’t remember ever having to fight with my twin sister. We wrestled and she almost did me in. She was a little stronger. She was the bigger one, even though she was younger—twenty-five minutes, how do you like that! Listen, that twenty-five minutes goes a long way. We were wrestling on the floor and she got me in the scissors grip, you know, and she was actually squeezing the living air out of me that I couldn’t breathe. And we had, back in those days, you say, “Okay, say uncle! Say uncle!” Well, I [mimics choking] couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say it. 6
And all of a sudden I must have gone limp, and she could realize it and so she released, and so I gasped for air.
And she says, “Oh, geez, Nance, wow. Why didn’t you say uncle?”
I said, “I couldn’t!” [laughed]
But other than that, no, even to today. You often hear of twins vying, in relation to grades in schools or things like this. No, no competitiveness between each other. But if anything, I think my twin followed in my footsteps more than she. It took me four years to recruit her into the Army Nurse Corps. That’s how difficult it is to get a nurse into the Army Nurse Corps. My own twin sister resisted it. [laughs]
TS: Well, before we get there, let me ask you—
NC: For many reasons other than—
TS: Right. And we’ll talk about those. I think those are really important to talk about. But I want to go kind of a little chronologically here and talk about how after high school, or even when you were in high school, were you thinking about the future and what you wanted to do?
NC: Nursing. I remember having a little play kit with the stethoscope and things like this, and Lynn and I used to use our brother as the patient. Poor Rus. Although we were very protective of him when we went out to play, Lynn and I, not realizing it at the time, were better at sports than our brother, and so when it came to being picked on teams, et cetera, we made sure that they picked him to be on a team. So we protected him over the years. So he was the patient most of the time.
Well, back then, you know, Therese—you’re not old enough to know—Back then, there were basically only three jobs that women looked at and that was teaching, secretary, or nursing. And look at today. Boggles your mind doesn’t it? So that’s—
TS: What appealed to you about nursing?
NC: The whole thing, taking care of people, doing something for other people. I think that’s just a—The basic thing that I reminder so vividly was Girl Scouts [of America], and the motto is, “Do a good turn daily.” It has served me my whole life. You know, when you think about what kind of impact or influence things have in your life, that. And of course, mother with church and Sunday school. That was always there. So this, “Do a good turn daily,” it just rubs off on you, and it just becomes a part of you. I don’t know how else to explain it. [coughs]
TS: I think that’s a wonderful explanation. Now did you go into nursing school then right after high school?
NC: Yes.
TS: Okay. And did you do any—Did you work at all when you were in high school?
NC: Yes. Good question. Oh, I love that. I’m so glad that you asked that question, Therese. During the summertime, we wanted to make a little spending money, of course. Well, have you 7
heard of Carter’s Little Liver Pills? That industry was just within less than a mile from our place, and they hired high school students during the summer to make some cash, and so you had an opportunity to work on the lines, you know. There were six of us from high school that applied and got jobs there. I guess that’s when we got our social security numbers; I don’t remember. But we worked there—I remember working at least two summers or more. And that’s where I got my nickname Musky, M-u-s-k-y. And I think I spoke to you about it. It’s part of my email address. Because they put we kids on a line so at least we had some camaraderie with each other, and as we were giggling and everything, but certainly doing our work with the supervisors there, I looked up and smiled at this one gal who we must have told a joke or something.
All of a sudden she says, “I think I’m going to call you Musky.”
I said, “What?”
She says, “Yeah, when you smile, you look like a muskmelon.”
Well, now how that ever came about. [laughs] That stayed with me through high school then and into nurse’s training. But then when that gang was no longer in the fold, so to speak, then that nickname was put in mothballs except for me. So yes, we worked in Carter’s Little Liver Pills. And I loved that factory work. It was exciting.
TS: What exactly—What did you do in the line? What exactly did you do?
NC: Well, to give an example, Carter’s Little Liver Pills also put out the product, the deodorant Arrid. I don’t know whether that’s even on the market anymore. Is it still on the market? I don’t use it. I use Secret or something else; there’s so much out there. But what you would do is work on the lines and they had a machine with a big hopper, and one lady was putting—most of them were women at that time because I think the men were just getting back into the fold from World War II, so there were a lot of women in industry at that time—who would load the jars, and someone was tending the hopper machine and it would fill the jars on the rotating thing and shoot the jars out. And then we had to make little cartons, fold them, stick them down, and the next person would put them in. It was typical on the line—did you ever see that Lucy, I Love Lucy show where she was doing something with candies, and tucking them all down. The machine got so far ahead of her or something she started to stick them in the front of her chest. Same difference. And so we were doing the line work.
TS: So you had to keep up with the line.
NC: Keep up with the line.
TS: You didn’t want to be like Lucy.
NC: No. No. And then someone at the end of the belt was stuffing them into a carton, folding that, and sticking it into a box and off it went. The interesting thing is, and, you know, you can learn so much. What sticks in your mind, these little things, of how industry fools you, or advertisements, et cetera, fools the public. Arrid wanted to make competition for itself, so it put out another deodorant called Hush, at that time, and all they changed was the flavor. The flavor, the smell, the aroma, but the product was exactly the same. It was Arrid deodorant, but it came out with a different aroma and went out on the market, so it made the competition within 8
themselves. Learning—you think of those learning experiences. Unfortunately, we don’t carry them too much with us to know how the public gets fooled, you know, over—It’s all with sales. It’s still a good product. They were still getting the best, at that time, so to speak. Isn’t that interesting?
TS: Very. It is very interesting. It’s interesting how you described the line, too.
NC: Which reminds me, my dad was a pretty sharp guy, too, as the butcher. He made his own sausage back then, soft pack sausage, and he put it on his own showcase at ten cents a pound. The whole morning nobody was buying it, and he couldn’t understand. So he put another up a sign up and he said, “Ten pounds for a dollar.” Within a half hour the whole bunch of sausage was gone. Same principle isn’t it?
TS: Yes. Very creative.
NC: Isn’t it, though?
TS: Very good. Well, let’s get you back to when you went in the army nurses’ training and what—
NC: Well, it wasn’t an army nurse’s training.
TS: I’m sorry. Nurses’ training first. We got to do that first.
NC: Got to do that first.
TS: Let’s see how we got into that.
NC: Got to become a nurse.
TS: That’s right.
NC: Yes.
TS: How did that come about, Nancy?
NC: Well, being that we wanted to have a job, have an income, be responsible, always wanted to—thought of the nursing and that was the way to go. Thought of that as opposed to collegiate. I think expenses have a lot to do with that, too. Back then, to go to college, you didn’t have really that many women that went into your academia. If they were going into secretarial work, they would go to secretarial school. So nursing was all mostly diploma schools at that time and connected with hospitals and three year programs. So it was very much just part of where we would go. Excellent programs. A three-year program, and you went year round. So basically, you had as much schooling and—Of course, you didn’t have to make a bed [TS coughs] three hundred times to know how to make a bed, so I’m sure they got some work force out of the students within the hospital setting. But practice makes perfect, doesn’t it? So that when you 9
did go to work, you knew you could do it because you did it so much. Just think in the collegiate programs, this is the difference, you know. You can say plus and minuses, because the nurses, as they went into the collegiate programs, the old standby diploma school nurse was trying to figure out [why] these young kids just don’t know how to make a bed right, or something like—Well, if you haven’t practiced it, and you’re doing your practice work out when you’re working, big difference. So, like I said, everything had its plus and minus. So it was a three-year program.
TS: Where did you go?
NC: At that time, it was a hospital nursing program at Fitkin Memorial Hospital in Neptune, New Jersey. It’s now the Jersey Shore [University] Medical Center. [pause]
TS: [unclear]
NC: I don’t think they have the program any longer. We went to—
TS: When you say “we” you’re talking about you and your twin both went?
NC: Yes. See, she sort of followed. Yeah, she didn’t want to go away from home, necessarily. She had friend ties and everything and didn’t want to really go out of the nest. But Nancy’s going, so Lynn’s going. So Lynn went and totally enjoyed it.
TS: Both of you?
NC: Yes. Double trouble. [chuckling]
TS: Now, it was a three-year program?
NC: Three-year program. The first six months, the academia was in a junior college program. So you did sort of have some college credit. I don’t know how much was—Well, that’s all within, you know, the transference of credits when it came [time] for me to go back later, five years, six years, for undergraduate at Teachers College, Columbia University, how much was transferrable. But that was your basic academia, was in the junior college system. [TS coughs] And then, certainly, we had a lot of classes in the program itself for the clinical work.
TS: Was there anything that you especially liked about your nurse’s training, or the opposite, that you didn’t especially care for?
NC: Therese, I have nothing but wonderful memories, and, in fact, Lynn and I will probably be going to a personal class reunion at classmates’ this summer when we go to New Jersey. She’ll come from Texas and I’ll come from Wilmington, and we’ll go to my sister’s in New Jersey, and we’ll go visit about half a dozen of our classmates and just chew the fat for a day. And part of this gang—back then we had what was called—here’s the devilishness coming out again—was the Gestapo Ten. There were ten of us that just seemed to just pal around together. We went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean in December in dungarees. You didn’t put a bathing suit on in December. So we were in the ocean up there in New Jersey in that cold swimming in 10
dungaree linen. In fact, I could sing a song for you that we made up. And it goes, [sings] “We’re the mighty Gestapo Ten, we live in the Fitkin den. We like to go swimming in dungaree linen. We’re the mighty Gestapo Ten. Hey!” I remember that after all these years.
Well, yes, we did get into a little trouble. Now, the interesting thing is, we were not—we were drinking some beer after we went to college in the evening. One of the girls was twenty-one, so she could buy beer. That was the age in New Jersey. And another girl had a vehicle. We would go out, she’d buy a six pack, and we would—There’d be six of us in the car, and we’d have a can of beer before we had to be in by ten o’clock. You know, you had a curfew. And so there we were. But we never brought booze into the nurse’s home, nursing home—nursing home, that isn’t—nurse’s quarters. But a couple of the other kids did. Not the Gestapo Ten group, but a couple of the other gals did bring booze into the—unbeknownst to us. I mean, I didn’t know at that time. But all of a sudden, the Gestapo Ten, we were notorious for, “Oh, if something’s going a little wrong, one of those gals must be deviling.” And so we got called into the director’s office and we were interrogated one at a time. Well, you can imagine the stories that came out as we were being interrogated. But they never found out who was bringing the booze in, because none of us knew. You know, we weren’t brining it in. But they sure found out a lot of other stuff! [laughs] So that’s—
TS: So you had a good time.
NC: Oh, wonderful time. And that’s all my life, Therese, regardless of where.
TS: Now, I know you didn’t go into Army Nurse’s Corp right away. What did you do after nursing school?
NC: Well, interestingly enough, everybody—At that time, most of my classmates were getting engaged and married. So you know how mothers are. They sort of are the fixer-uppers. And there was this gentleman who was about eight years my senior who was in Monroe Calculating [Machines Company] sales business for office machinery business. And Mom, being in the tax office, she had this contact with this sales rep. His name was Bud Sisk, S-i-s-k, and I often thought, “Oh, gosh. Do I want kids named Sisk? Frisky Sisk? Kisk?” trying to figure this type of thing. Well, I became engaged. Mom set up a blind date for us and we went out, and he was really a neat guy, and we became engaged. But I never wore my engagement ring. I got a chain and put it around my neck, because I was into softball. I was also working the operating room as a new graduate at Fitkin Hospital, and when you had to scrub, you couldn’t have rings on or anything like this, so instead of taking it off and losing it in a pocket, I wore it around my neck all the time. And all of a sudden, three of—two other classmates and my twin and I, we rented a place that was adjacent to this bar, The Gaddis. And they were wonderful. They owned this bar. The four of us work hard and play hard all the time. They were, my twin and these two friends were thinking, “It’s time to take up the roots and let’s go to Florida.” Oh. Well, I wasn’t going to stay behind. So that ended my engagement because the four of us toodled off to Florida. And that’s a whole story in itself of getting stuck on Myrtle Beach [South Carolina]. Now this is back in 1953. Isn’t that wonderful?
TS: What happened?11
NC: So we went, drove down in two cars. My twin and I had a car that Dad had given to we girls our last year of training, and Apple—Applegate was her name, big gal—she had a new Buick that her father—Her father, by the way, was a butcher in Trenton, New Jersey, and he had gotten her a car. So Avie—her name was Avalone, Eleanor Avalone—those two were in one car, and Lynn and I were in the other car. Every once in a while we would switch, because we all drove and you wouldn’t know who was driving what car, et cetera. We stopped off at Myrtle Beach and we were going to have a hot dog roast on Myrtle Beach, and we got a motel. And so we all piled in Apple’s car and went driving down to Myrtle Beach. And at that time they had roads that went into the beach and just kept going right onto the beach. There was no stop sign or anything up. And so [laughing] you know what I’m going to say, right? Off we go down this road, and Apple certainly wasn’t any slowpoke, and the first thing you know she was four wheels in sand and there was no way of getting out.
Well, some couple stopped and saw four ladies in distress, so he and his wife, they helped us get the car out. But before they did that, we went on the beach and had us a hot dog roast. And he happened to be a news commentator on the South Carolina radio. And of course, radio was the big thing then. And it was for, you know, playing—disc jockey, I want to say. And he says, “Now you listen tomorrow morning” he says, “because I’m going to play a song for you gals and tell about this experience on Myrtle Beach last night.” And so we listened the next day and what he played was, and I can’t remember the song today, how it went, but the name of it was, “I’ll Be Waiting for You, Baby.” [chuckles]
But anyway, back in those days—he actually, I don’t know how he could jack the car up, because that was difficult to do because when you put the jack under, as you jacked the car up, the weight of the car would push the jack down, so you really weren’t getting the wheels up. However he did it, he did get us high enough that he could put boards and stuff underneath the tires, and we were able to back up and go on our merry way. I mean, now who ever heard—you think about today, and what goes on.
So you know our whole year in Florida was one experience after another. We lived right on Miami Beach on Collins Avenue. At that time, big hotels, the San Souci, the Algiers with these beautiful foyers, you know, that go—that are so elegant. Well, we lived in an apartment right on Collins Avenue, and then we attended the Seabreeze hotel bar across—that was beachfront property, and knew the bartender, and so we were his girls. And so we just worked and played hard the whole year on Miami Beach. And when we wanted to get elegant, we would just go down town Miami Beach in some swayze[?] clothes and go in and pretend we were touring, you know, that we were the tourists in the Algiers, Sans Souci. I don’t think those hotels are even there anymore.
We worked at Mount Sinai [Medical Center] on the beach in the operating room. Avie and Apple were medical-surgical nurses. And we had the whole year, wonderful year. Our mom, Lynn and my mom and dad, came down to visit because they just wanted to make sure that we were eating properly. Because at that time, nurses didn’t make that much money. And it took four of us to pay that rent, and, of course, the prices go up. They want to get their money, so the big money’s up front during the winter, in case you decide to take off and go back for the summer, then—so our rent was basically almost doubled during December, January, February, March. So, boy, let me tell you, by the time the month was over, our refrigerator, we might have a soda in there or maybe a bag of peanuts or something like that. But I don’t think it’s any different than the kids today living on a shoestring, do you?12
TS: I’m thinking you’re probably right, Nancy. [laughs]
NC: But didn’t it sound like fun?
TS: It sounded like a grand time.
NC: And there we were, living—dated fellas from Hamstead. I think it was called Hamstead.
TS: Homestead [Joint Air Reserve Base]?
NC: Homestead. That’s it. Yes, see, there comes the air force. Air force—Homestead, because there’s a history on that, too. There were navy dentists there at Homestead, and Avie
and I dated these two dentists there. And that’s another whole story. It was wonderful.
TS: Yes.
NC: Because during the Cuban crises in 1963, guess where I ended up in the army?
TS: Homestead?
NC: Homestead. Pitched in a tent during that missile crisis for three weeks. Small world isn’t it?
TS: Yes, it is.
NC: And what a cute story that is. To say, well—
TS: Go ahead. Let’s hear it.
NC: Do you remember—I bet you you weren’t born, Therese—1963?
TS: Actually, ‘62 was the—sixty—’62, I think, was the missile crisis.
NC: Was the missile crisis. Yes, because ‘63 was the Kennedy assassination. It was 1962. You’re correct.
TS: That’s the year I was born.
NC: Okay. I was at Letterman [Army Medical Center in California] and I was on what they call a K-team.
TS: K?
NC: K. This was part of your Army medical deployment. It comprised of a nurse, two doctors, and three medical corpsmen. And they had a general surgery team and an orthopedic team and a chest team, so that these teams would converge at the field hospital from different 13
units. I came from Letterman as the general surgery team. The orthopedic team came out of Fort Bragg here in North Carolina. And the chest team came out of Walter Reed [Army Medical Center], in Washington, D.C., and they never arrived during this three-week period. But we went to Homestead, you see.
Well, when that, when President Kennedy gave the announcement over television that we were in a crisis or whatever, we became mobilized and I was off the next day on a TWA flight out of Letterman with my team, the two surgeons. That’s how fast we mobilized. I even was able to throw a quarter in the slot machine in Las Vegas when we stopped for a little stop on this commercial flight. Because it was a commercial flight, it wasn’t all military, it was just our team got tickets for that.
Now, we were not supposed to—We were sworn to secrecy. That night we got our orders and weren’t supposed to tell anyone where we were going. We were allowed one telephone call, so I called home and I talked with my twin. She was still not in the army. She was at Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield [New Jersey], the operating room supervisor.
And so Lynn says, “Well, Nance.”
I says, “I’m just off tomorrow morning. We’re under secret orders, et cetera. So I just wanted to let you know I’ll get in contact with you when we get settled,” et cetera.
And so she was sure. She says, “You’re taking your bathing suit?”
I says, “Sure am.” Well, she knew I wasn’t going to Alaska!” [laughs]
“Are you going to our old stamping grounds?” Well, that put us right in Miami Beach, didn’t it, in Homestead?
I said, “Yeah.”
Without saying anything, she knew exactly where I was going. Isn’t it interesting how without breaking the code in any way that she knew?
TS: So what did you do while you were there?
NC: That was three weeks. That’s another whole story. We pitched tents. We were in—Well, first of all, when I arrived, there weren’t any quarters for women, so I stayed in the hotel at Miami Beach. I mean in Miami. And that was the same hotel that your airline stewardess and pilot stayed at, so I partied for three nights and three days with the airline people. [laughs] Because we didn’t have any of our military vehicles, they rented out of Avis and Hertz rental. There weren’t any rental cars for visitors, tourists coming to Florida, because the army got them all. You know, sucked them all up there to set up this hospital and whatever else. So until I got quarters, that’s what I did. I partied in the hotel there. It was wonderful. And I got to go to my old stamping grounds. I don’t remember whether I saw—I’m quite sure that I—I don’t remember whether I saw Nat Wiener, the bartender there, or not. I can’t recall. I think if I had, I would have remembered it, you know, very strongly. I might have tried to make contact but couldn’t.
So then, when the tents were pitched, the nurses were in a tent, and we got a choice piece of real estate. The monsoon—Would you believe the monsoons came? That’s monsoon time in Florida, September. It was late September, October, that we were there for that three week period. And it rained. And we were in our tents. We had cots set up. And you know the number ten cans? Those are the great big cans that the food comes in for the mess hall. Number ten cans. I don’t—The recorder can’t see this.
TS: Yeah, I know. Nancy’s making a picture of the [chuckles] how big they would be.14
NC: The number ten can. And we sat—our seating were regular like church chairs, you know, the folding chairs. And we sat there sitting in our chairs—that’s all that was in the tent, and the our cot—with our feet—and we’re in fatigues and boots—with our feet up on a number ten can, having a scotch and water, because one of the nurses from Fort Bragg, she brought her trunk and she made sure she had a bottle of scotch with her upon arrival. And there we were in the downpour, and we had about three or four inches of rain in our tent. So, I thought, “Boy, isn’t this great? The army gets a choice piece of real estate in Florida.”
And little did they—I was able to talk with—she was a major, Major Sims. I was a lieutenant. We were only three nurses. The chief nurse was a lieutenant colonel. The major from Fort Bragg, orthopedic team, and me, were the only ones that arrived at that time for that three- week period, because it’s history. We were only there for three weeks. The thing was over and we went back to where we were. The chest team never made it. They sat—I found out ten years later, when I was at Walter Reed, I met an operating room nurse, Marbeth Michael, and we happened to be chewing the fat in the officer’s club and talking about our experiences, et cetera, and the crisis, Cuban crisis, came up. And I must have spit out, “Well, I went out from Letterman as the general surgery team.”
And Marbeth Michaels says, “Oh, yeah.” She says, “We were the chest team out of Walter Reed and we never made it. We sat on the docks at Savannah, Georgia, wondering where we were going, et cetera, and sat there the whole three weeks and never did get to Florida.”
And I says, “Boy, I was wondering where our chest team was.” Because in our package of instruments that I was responsible with my sergeants to make sure that I had equipment, et cetera, and become functional, I didn’t have any long instruments, because the policy then was, you borrowed them from the chest team. If the doctors need some long instruments in the abdomen, we made sure that we would put those instruments separate so that they were available for either team. And I was very concerned. Gee, if I had to become functional, I really, you know, I really can’t. So it was writing these kinds of reports. Now, you just think about this, Therese. Here I am, first lieutenant, about thirty—how old was I? Nineteen sixty-two.
TS: Oh, yeah.
NC: Thirty-one.
TS: That’s right.
NC: Would that be it?
TS: That would be right.
NC: Thirty-one, an old first lieutenant, but new to the military because Letterman was my first assignment in 1962. So I didn’t know anything about military or anything like this. [TS coughs] And really I didn’t have any training for this in basic training. You know what was my main stead? Girl Scouts, because we went camping. And so live in a tent? No sweat. You know what I mean? It’s kind of interesting how there was no threat or what you call discomfort-type thing. “Oh. Oh, my. Sleeping on a cot,” and stuff like this. No, I had it in the Girl Scouts. So 15
the Girl Scouts prepared me for my mobilization for the Cuban crisis. Fascinating isn’t it? How you can—you can just pull these weaves together. [TS coughs]
And now, Therese, I was the only surgical patient in my operating room, so I knew it was functional. I don’t know how this is going to go across, but I’ll stay with the medical terminology, okay? We were going to mess hall every day. Three square meals. Well, I never had that at Letterman. I was working in the operating room and I wouldn’t eat breakfast in the morning when you had to go to the operating room and possibly after work. So I was having a full breakfast and a full lunch and a full supper and drinking milk and all this. Oh, my. I got so bound up that all of a sudden, I got a thrombosed hemorrhoid and my surgeon had to operate in my operating room and release this painful thrombosed hemorrhoid. And my surgical nurse was the major of the orthopedic team, and we used my operating room. And I was the only person. And that now, is that a story or is—So I knew we were functional. I knew my doctor was good. I knew our operating room tables were okay, and the nurse and corpsmen were ready.
TS: You had to test it yourself. [chuckles]
NC: Now, the real funny part, if you can imagine this—and Therese, you’re air force, and, Cheryl—It’s Cheryl, right? Were you military?
Cheryl Brown: Army.
NC: Army. That’s right. I should have remembered from—Do you remember the hot rod that you—it was a coil, an aluminum coil or something that you could plug in and heat your water? Put it in your cup and heat the water? Well, we had those hot rods, and so my post-operative nursing care for myself was to take sitz baths. You needed some moist heat for recovery of your sore bottom. So the sergeants were wonderful. They put up a little screened area in my nursing tent—because there were only the three of us in there, we three nurses—so that I could have a private cubicle and a little bench. And I got one of the Mannel[?] basin from our surgical—from our ward tent that we had set up for holding patients if we have to become—we did take care of a few patients that were injuries at that time, just from people getting hurt being in the field there and working. And I was the floor nurse at that time. I wasn’t functioning as an operating room nurse.
So anyway, I got one of my Mannel basins and I put it, put water in it, and put it on the stool that I had there, and put my little hot rod in it. And lo and behold, guess what? I forgot to pull the plug on the hot rod. Well, zip! I cauterized my problem! Man, did I get out of that water in a hurry! [laughs]
Now—So you say did you have fun? These are the things you remember. Here we are in crises and I’m in the tent taking care of my sore bottom. Still went to work. Can you see how the stories just mount and mount?
TS: I’ll have to take you back, though.
NC: Yeah, I forgot. I get sidetracked don’t I, Therese.16
TS: Oh, no, no, no. I love the stories. They’re wonderful. But I want to—let’s—you and I talked earlier about how you decided to get—go in the Army Nurse Corps. Why don’t you talk about that a little bit? What motivated you to do this and what you were doing kind of before?
NC: Okay. When I came—remember I was in Florida from 1953 to 1954. And there’s another story. I was driving, my twin and I, back from Florida when the Hurricane Hazel that hit in 1954 hit the Carolinas. I was only a few hours ahead of that storm, in driving rain, et cetera, not realizing that it was a major hurricane coming through. And of course, your Carolinians remember that disastrous one because the next hurricanes really didn’t come until the nineties, here—Fran, Bertha, Bonnie. Look how I know them. Dennis, Floyd, and Irene. Six of them, ‘96 to ‘99. Boy, I’ve got those up there, don’t I. Never realized, going back to New Jersey.
But anyway, went back to New Jersey, became employed in Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield, New Jersey, my twin and I. And that’s another wonderful story, too, but we don’t really have time for that. Lynn and I worked on the wards because they didn’t have any slots in the operating room, and she was in one ward on the first floor and I was up on the third floor in another ward. And there was this surgeon who didn’t know us, that there were two of us, and he’d see my twin seeing patients at one end of the hospital, and he’d leisurely walk the hall, get on the elevator, and go up to the third floor, and who would meet him but me. “My god, how did you get here so fast?” He never—no. I’m getting my story mixed up here. He saw me and this just set up, “Wow, how’d she get there that fast?” So he did an experiment. He still didn’t know that there were twins, but he decided that he was going to go see the patients where my twin was and literally run down the hall and take the steps, not wait for the elevator, and get up to the third floor and see what was going on. And lo and behold, would you believe that I just happened to come out of the nurse’s station at that time.
And he just says, “How the [implied curse word] did you get here this fast?” Well, then the light bulb went on.
And I said, “Oh, Dr. Cannis.” I said, “That’s my twin sister down there.”
So isn’t it—It’s kind of funny.
TS: Yes, it’s very funny.
NC: So anyway, we worked at Muhlenberg in the fifties, you know, from ‘54 on. Lynn became our operating room [OR] supervisor because of the death of our supervisor, who had been an army nurse. You see, there’s some connections. But hers was during World War II, so there were little light bulbs there. She had died of—well, that was later. No, I may be a little mixed up there. Lynn was the assistant OR supervisor and the boss, Ingrid Nelson, was supervisor, and she was an ex-army nurse just from World War II. She wasn’t career.
And I was the instructor there for the—they had a nursing school, so I was teaching the operating room course in—but not actually on faculty. But this required me to start studying for my bachelor’s [degree] to meet the criteria to teach in that program, even though I wasn’t on the faculty, for their accreditation. Besides, it was just part and parcel. I knew I was pretty much career, and if you’re going to, you know, whatever these positions, the writing’s on the wall, you see, where you have to advance yourself accordingly.
So I went to Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York, nights, and so did Lynn, working toward our bachelor’s degree. Then in nineteen—In the late fifties, Lynn and I, in order to get our credits paid, because we hadn’t saved any money, Columbia Presbyterian 17
Hospital in New York City was paying up to six credits if you worked in the hospital. So that’s what Lynn and I did. We went and then we had an experience in Columbia Presbyterian in New York. And we lived up in Fort Jay. You know where Pat Boone, the singer—Teaneck, New Jersey, or—Fort Lee, I think it’s called, Fort Lee, New Jersey. That’s his stamping grounds. But it’s right by the George Washington Bridge. And we would cross over every day, George Washington Bridge, into New York City to work at Columbia Presbyterian.
Well, then it came time to complete the undergraduate study and we had to matriculate and go full time for a year. And in that full time, we had a six-month experience as public health nursing in the Bronx. Can you imagine that? What an experience. I mean that’s a story in itself, too. And also at Memorial Sloan-Kettering [Cancer Center], the cancer institute in New York, six months there. Well, I didn’t have any money. How was I going to go full time? And I didn’t even—I think mom and dad could have helped us out but really didn’t want to go that route. So I chose—There was this gal in one of my classes who was a major in the Army Nurse Corps. And she says, “Well, Nancy, did you ever think about service?”
And I said, “Well, you know, off and on,” because when I was in nurse’s training, Korea—1951, ‘52—a couple of my instructors in nurse’s training at Fiktin Memorial Hospital went into the Army Nurse Corps. [TS coughs]
So that was ingrained in me. Plus, I visited them in ‘52 when my aunt took me, took my twin and I on a graduation present out west with her daughter, to take her back to Riverton, Wyoming. And so we saw these, our nurses, our instructors in army uniforms, you know. And we tried on the hat. So there’s a lot of this indoctrination stuff going on in my head.
And she says, “You ever think of going into the military?”
I says, “Well, yeah, but I never got serious about it.”
She says, “Well, the army has a wonderful program for registered nurses to finish their undergraduate study.”
I says, “Well, what about the navy?”
She says, “They don’t have that program. You would have to go on active duty, be selected, and then go.” I know I didn’t have that time. See, I had to matriculate then.
I says, “Well, what about the air force?”
They said, “Nope. They don’t have that program either. You have to go on active duty and be selected.”
I says, “Well, I guess then the army’s for me.”
So I went down into the recruiting office. It was over in Fort Jay, Governors Island. That was the headquarters for First Army back then. Met the nurse counselor, Sarah Bunn. Still remember it as big as life today. These things will all mesh because I was army recruiting later, at one time. You know, things all come together. And that’s how I got into the army.
What they did was gave you a commission according to your experience in nursing. That’s how I never was a shave-tail, a second lieutenant. With my eight years, nine years nursing behind me, I went in as a first lieutenant, got the first lieutenant salary, and that counted for active duty time and continued at school. Wonderful! And I had a two-year contract. And that’s history. I never got off active duty. Does that answer your question, Therese?
TS: I think so. So—
NC: That’s how I got into the army. I couldn’t talk my twin into it. In the meantime, she’s—18
TS: Why couldn’t you talk her into it?
NC: Because she was back at Muhlenberg and I do remember now. Ingrid Nelson became very ill, and Lynn felt committed to the hospital because she was in line to take over that supervisory role at Muhlenberg Hospital, and didn’t want to—here comes your loyalty to your institutions, et cetera—and Lynn’s philosophy, “Well, you go in and try it, Nance, and if you like it, we’ll talk about it. But right now I’m going to stay put.”
So she stayed at Muhlenberg, and that’s when, in fact, Ingrid Nelson passed away and Lynn stepped into the supervisory role. And then it’s more history because I got at Letterman, right, the Cuban crisis, and then went back to Letterman, and then I got assigned to [United States Military Academy at] West Point, the academy, to take care of those young troopers. My only regret, Therese, is that I was thirty-three years old and those little cadets were in their early twenties. Taking care of the cadets.
And that’s when—that’s the other story—when I visited my twin at the hospital in Muhlenberg. And to make a long story short, when I visited her there, I was in uniform, and I had lunch with a couple of the doctors that I had worked with, the surgeons. And then I went back to the academy, and the next morning, the surgeons came up to the window and saw my twin and they said, “My god, Lynn. You look ten years older than your sister.”
Lynn says, “That does it.” Because she was twenty-five minutes younger, you see. But that wear and tear of the civilian life—I had already told her, see. By this we were already thirty-four years old, and the cut off was thirty-five for coming on active duty. And I had told her, “If you don’t do it, Lynn, you’re not going to.” You make it.
And so that combination, she went down to the recruiting office in Newark within that week, where they were giving guaranteed assignments. I was getting transferred to California to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center to do graduate study. So you have all of this neat stuff coming in. So I’m going to be back on the west coast. And Lynn knew she could get a guarantee.
She says, “You sure I can get a guaranteed assignment?”
I said, “Yeah, Lynn, that’s what they’re telling me.”
So when she went down the recruiting office, she says, “My twin’s in the Army Nurse Corps.” She says, “I understand that you guarantee the assignment.”
And Connie Conditt[?], who was the recruiting officer there in Newark said, “That’s so.”
And she said, “Well, I’d like to go to Letterman, on the Presidio out there in California.”
Connie says, “That can be arranged.” She says, “However, you have to remember that we don’t guarantee how long you stay there,” which is a good punch line because she beat me overseas to Vietnam. [chuckles]
So Lynn says, “Where’s the papers?”
Connie Conditt says, “That was the easiest army nurse that I ever recruited in my whole career.”
TS: Well, it sounds like—
NC: I guess Lynn was ready.
TS: You had worked on her for, what, four years?19
NC: Four years. Four years.
TS: Did they give you any kind of bonus for that?
NC: She went—No. In fact, that’s the other story. She outranks me. Can you believe that? In retirement. That’s another long story.
TS: What did you both retire at?
NC: I retired as a lieutenant colonel. She retired as a full colonel. And it’s because she couldn’t get into the regular army like I did and there was an old system called ROPA. It’s called Reserve Officer—whatever PA is [Personnel Act] —and she couldn’t go into regular army because she couldn’t meet the two regulations. She was too old to be a lieutenant, and she didn’t have enough service time to be a captain in regular army, so she couldn’t go. Because she was a captain, she was brought into the army as a captain because of having ten years—well, twelve years, I guess, of nursing, got credit for that. So that ROPA system, when she was on active duty, she was getting promoted as you went up the line there. And this others system, ROPA, the reserve system, was promoting her, too. And when her twenty years was up, she was a lieutenant colonel, as was I. Both operating room supervisors. I retired as a—That was the only operating room supervisor job I had in the army and it was the only operating room supervisor job that she had in the army was the last assignment. And when she retired, she was a lieutenant colonel, but that ROPA rank system surpassed her active duty promotions and she retired as a full colonel.
I tried to get half her—split the additional salary with her [chuckles] for that time, but it didn’t work. But isn’t that an interesting story, because our careers paralleled pretty good when you think of the nursing school. We both ended up with our master’s. She subsequently had gone to—what’s the school in Washington, D.C.?—Catholic University for her master’s. So we both had master’s degrees. We were both operating room. We both had recruiting. We both had Vietnam tour of duty. In fact, our tours overlapped. We each had teaching jobs. She was with the enlisted branch of the technician in the army for operating room, and I taught the nurse’s operating room. And then our last assignment was not a medical center but what they call the station hospitals. Mine was Fort Benning, Georgia, and hers was in Kentucky. I’m trying to think.
CB: Campbell?
NC: Campbell. Fort Campbell. There you go. Thanks, Cheryl. Yeah, Fort Campbell. So when you look at the parallels, age, educational system the same, it’s really a good clear-cut picture of the inequities within the system. That isn’t in there anymore now. And I’m happy for her.
TS: She doesn’t remind you about it too much, does she?
NC: No, no, no.20
[End of CD 1—Begin CD 2]
TS: Well, when you did decide to go to the nurse’s corps, Army Nurse Corps, what did your parents think about that?
NC: They were very supportive and very happy. They always subscribed to whatever we wanted to do to enhance our career, or, you know, for working, et cetera. So mom and dad were very proud, very proud.
TS: Did your father serve in the military at all?
NC: World War I, he was in the army. What’s interesting, our whole family was navy. My brother was in the navy. All our cousins in World War II were navy. However, Dad’s brother, Uncle Al, was in the army and Dad was in the army in World War I as a cook. I think that stood him in good stead, too, during your Depression times, et cetera. Dad cooked all the—Oh, he was a wonderful cook. When it came Sunday dinner, Mom would take us to church and Dad would stay home and be cooking the roast beef for dinner. Made wonderful soups. Where were we again? Where were we? I got lost.
TS: No, you’re not lost. You’re not lost. Well, you were—I was asking you how your parents felt about how you went in—when you went into the service.
NC: The interesting thing, Therese, was when Lynn came to Letterman on her guaranteed assignment, she came in February of 1965, and by August she was picked up to go to Vietnam. She beat me overseas. I was doing graduate study, as I said, at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, so she did in fact beat me overseas by six months. I was slated to go to Korea when I finished my graduate studies out in California. The motto of the Army Nurse Corps at that time was, “Conserve the fighting strength.” Now it’s, “Proud to care,” to get rid of that aggressive aspect of military, et cetera. But at that time, “Conserve the fighting strength.” And I thought, “What am I going to Korea for? Part of my mission is to take care of the military, and I’m on active duty and that’s where I should be, and I want to be, in and I want to be with my twin if I can.” Whatever. Now the reason I wasn’t assigned at the same time—remember the old Sullivan, during World War II, the Sullivan boys? There were four of them in the navy, and they were on the same ship, and it went down. So there was, I’m sure, some kind of a regulation that precluded military immediate family members being stationed together in a hostile area.
So what I did is I wanted to go, and they were building—You know, we were going from advisory capacity to actually supplying troops to Vietnam for combat, and when you build up the fighting strength within a hostile area, the hospital support goes along. During that period of time, we went from one hospital to twenty hospitals. Well, you have to have nurses for this. So we were starting to exchange, in the middle of this thing, about eight-hundred nurses annually to supply those twenty hospitals as they built. So they were just starting to build, in ’65, that corps. Lynn was with the 3rd Surg[ical] Hospital. So I took some time from school—I was able to get some time off—and went and spoke to Mom and Dad about it.
And they said, “If that’s what you want to do, Nancy, we’re all for you.” 21
And I said, “Well, we’ll have to go to Washington, D.C.,” I said, “because I think I’m slated for Korea and they won’t assign us. They want to see my parents.”
So my parents and I went to Washington, D.C. and spoke with the procurement Army Nurse Corps officers that were in Washington, D.C. And they asked Mom and Dad how they felt about it and they said, “Whatever Nancy wants to do, we’re for it.” And so my orders got changed. And in six months—that’s when my schooling was over—then I had orders for Vietnam. And that’s how Lynn and my tour overlapped by six months.
TS: Now, where were you sent when you went to Vietnam?
NC: I was sent to 3rd Field Hospital right outside of Saigon, Tan Son Nhut Air Base. I just—It was within city limits, though, a renovated school building. And we were in white uniform. We were called the Walter Reed of Vietnam. White duty uniforms, white shoes and stockings and the cap. We still had caps then.
TS: In what year is this?
NC: It was 1966, February. My tour was February of ’66. February 15, I remember it so vividly, until February 15 of 1967. And—
TS: And your sister was over there?
NC: She was over there.
TS: Where was she stationed?
NC: She was at 3rd Surg Hospital in Bien Hoa, which was out in the boonies, I don’t know, I want to say maybe fifty miles outside of Saigon. She was on, I want to call it—I want to say Da Nang [Dong Nai] River but that doesn’t sound right. There was a river there because I remember her talking about that they were under tentage. The [Army] Corps of Engineers had built concrete slabs for them to pitch their tents, and they were receiving wounded within ten minutes from across the river. The fighting was right across the river. That’s why we saved so many with limbs. They weren’t out there in the jungles and the dirt and grime to have their wounds become infected, et cetera. When you—that dust off helicopter, they had a helipad and we were receiving wounded within ten minutes of injury and go right to the operating room. And that’s why you—So she was there.
Anyway, I went by Pan-American [World Airways]. I was the only female on the plane. All the rest was—now this was GIs because it was—The government contracted with civilian airlines to transport troops. So I flew in into Tan Son Nhut Air Base on a Saturday, and my twin was going to meet me with two air boys, jet pilots, who she was dating out in Bien Hoa, so I could meet this—I think his name was Charlie. Neat guys. And they were supposed to meet me at Tan Son Nhut airport. Boy, this was great. Well, they had it all planned. The only thing is—now here you have air force people—I’ve got to get this in, Therese—two air boys and my twin, and they forgot to check arrival times, et cetera, and they were late. They had a bouquet of flowers, you know, to give to me, and some candy or something, but they never met me. 22
And when I got off that plane and all Vietnamese people and the foreign language—there were some military around—but I stood there in the airport—I literally have to say this—it’s like a light bulb went on. And I said, “What the hell am I doing here?” That’s the shockwave that I had that this is real. It would have, I’m sure, been entirely different if my twin had met me at that airport with those two flyboys. But all of a sudden I was all alone, not really that new to the army—I mean old to the army. My only experience was the Cuban crisis. Okay? There’s no way to teach combat. I certainly felt very confident with all of the experience in civilian world. Asbury Park, New Jersey, was loaded with gun fights and knifings, you know, from that time, so [with] that experience I knew I was an asset. I’ll be a little—you got to give me a word for it—I knew they were getting the best. How can I say that, Therese?
TS: I think you just did, Nancy.
NC: There was no doubt in my mind that I could do the job, which is another aspect when you think of the young nurses coming out of nurse’s training, the lieutenants that went over there and with your traumatic stress syndrome. This was not stressful for me. It was devastating, you know, the wounds, et cetera, but I didn’t have that sense of threat that I couldn’t do the job. Was I doing the job of saving them? No. So does that help you to understand a little in relation to our younger troops? Look what’s happening today when you look at Iraq and those young—It’s the same thing. It gets me right here. I’m touching the old heart when I think of those young troops that are over in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it has forever been.
TS: Was it what you expected when you got to Vietnam?
NC: I really didn’t know what to expect. I just, you know, my—I had never been to a foreign country that I can remember. No. It was my first time out of the United States that I can remember because I didn’t go to Europe until 1969. Yes, that was—so that’s the shockwave of all of a sudden—I didn’t feel threatened. I just all of a sudden—well, I don’t know how to put it—it’s like you’re alone but not alone, because there’s nothing like the military to take care of the military. Because I immediately—as soon as that shockwave got off, there were some people there that spoke some English or, you know, I got hooked up with some military and was able to let them know where I was going. And what’s interesting, too, being an officer, nurse, female, I think there’s an automatic camaraderie there that the guys take care of you. There looking after you. And I remember feeling then, all of a sudden, such the beginning of a secure feeling, which is interesting because it carried over to my whole tour and even when I got back to the United States and was in North—in my home in North Brunswick Township with my parents and the race riots were going on in the United States and had traversed from California across, and they were in Newark, New Jersey, twenty-five miles from my home and coming over the television were gunshot wounds—gunshots.
And I said, “Mom, what’s that?”
She says, “They’re having riots in Newark, New Jersey.”
And I said, “Boy, Mom, I’m not going anywhere near that place.” And that’s only twenty-five miles. I says, “Mom, I was safer in Vietnam.”
I don’t know how much that eased her, but that was the impact that I thought, “Oh, my gosh, within our own country.”23
And that’s because I was within a compound. We had military police, plus Vietnamese police. We called them white mice, They were little guys in white uniforms. And felt very, very secure.
TS: Could you des—
NC: So it’s a—
TS: Go ahead.
NC: It’s just kind of paradoxical, isn’t it? If that’s a good word for it.
TS: That you’re safer in Vietnam than in New Jersey?
NC: Yes, at that particular time. I would not go into Newark, New Jersey, to go to the restaurant. I’d go to downtown Saigon. And I had me some nice food in downtown Saigon in a hostile country.
TS: What did—did you—was there any sense—You were there in ‘66 and you were in Vietnam. Was there any turmoil going on about the war at that time before you left, or was there any?
NC: No, I think it was just starting to take its turn.
TS: What was your feeling about the war at that time? [NC coughs]
NC: You know, it’s kind of interesting, Therese. You’re so—I was so taken up with my work and working hard, and after duty hours developing a procedure manual for the hospital. I was a good candidate for that because that’s another interesting crossover. While I was doing my undergraduate study at Teachers College, during the summer I didn’t have any courses, see. I was just six months—Well, they gave the summer period off. It was a semester-type thing for those two projects of public health and the cancer institute that—I lost my trend of thought. Where was I?
TS: We were talking about the attitudes at the time, and you said that it had started and you were doing the manual in your off time and that summer job that summer helped you.
NC: Oh, yes, the summer job. What they did, because I was in the army, they sent me to Fort Jay. And this is a funny story in itself. Hadn’t been to basic, knew nothing about the army, didn’t even have uniforms, so they supplied me with nurse’s uniforms, white uniforms and the cap, and taught me how to salute. And that was army headquarters. I was given a directive—I still remember Edie Moe, our chief nurse.
She says, “Now, Lieutenant Christ, whatever you do, you go directly to the hospital and then you come directly back to the quarters and get into civilian clothing.” She says, “This is army headquarters and all the brass is here, and we don’t want you to get into trouble not knowing who to salute or what to do.”24
But my assignment at that hospital was to develop their procedural manual for nurses, which was a 100 percent wonderful experience because I got to converse with all the nurses on the floor, all your MSC [Medical Service Corps] officers who are the administrative people, and the different departments within the army medical facility there to develop this manual. For example, just to—what if somebody dies? What’s the procedure? That’s an example. How to write up a procedure. And then make a manual. I made it so it was flexible enough that you could take pages out and put pages in.
Now here’s the real interesting thing, and you’re going to get a charge out of this, Therese. The army—I had no army manual. I had no manual. I had nothing to work with, and I couldn’t get a manual from Walter Reed. I couldn’t get a manual from any place. Guess where I got my manuals? The navy and the air force. And those two procedural manuals I used as guidelines for me and developed the manual at Fort Jay, New Jersey, in nineteen—had to be ‘65. Isn’t that fascinating?
So when I got to 3rd Field Hospital, which had been operational for several—a couple of—no, a little over a year, I guess, because we went into that capacity in sixty—I’d have to go back to the records as to when that hospital opened. Because the original hospital, in ’62, was up in Nha Trang, and it was a field hospital. That was the army hospital in country. The navy had a dispensary down in Saigon. I would expect that the air force had stuff at Cam Ranh Bay. I’m not quite sure when that opened up for air evacuation. When these field hospitals open, when they open, I don’t know where all their manuals come from, et cetera, but your chief nurses then tried to get functioning, working to have it meet as close as possible the surgeon general’s, the IG, the Inspector General’s rules and regulations, plus the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals. And one of them is having a procedural manual. And so, besides my work, I got charged with this and had a little committee of other nurses. But I was basically doing the write-up. And we’d have meetings. So you say, “What did you do over there, Nance?” Well, that was where it was twenty-four hours a day.
TS: Well, that’s what I was going to ask you—
NC: That type thing, see.
TS: —if you could kind of describe getting up and then your day and then going to sleep. Can you do that?
NC: Well, I was the assistant operating room supervisor there, so most of my work was day shift. The younger staff took the evenings. Well, you have to realize that we didn’t really have—it would be like being on call type thing if something came in that had to be done. Because what happens is, in that situation, you can’t wear out your anesthetists and your surgeons. 3rd Field Hospital was the only neuro[logical] center in Vietnam at that time, so we were receiving all of the head injuries. If that can be put into perspective, for example, Lynn’s hospital, 3rd Surg, if they got a head injury, if they could stabilize the individual, they would be evac[uat]ed immediately to 3rd Field Hospital because we only had one. If you could think, he was the only neurosurgeon in country. Then, of course, as our evacuation hospitals came in, et cetera, then these hospitals had your full complex of specialized surgeons, okay? So we were the neuro center, so we were receiving the head injuries. 25
Which brings into focus—what’s interesting, Therese, you’ve heard of triage? Patients get triaged. We only had what I would consider two flaps, and that was when they mortared Than Son Nhut Air Base and we got casualties from there and we triaged out on the grounds. And that’s setting up who goes into surgery first, plus our emergency room which was right adjacent to the operating room. Then I would work in the emergency room there with the emergency room nurses doing the triaging, et cetera. And then as the surgeons were determining who best would survive, et cetera, would go to the operating room then we’d start to become functional and would weed ourselves into the operating rooms. Well, you can understand. What if we had a couple of head injuries? It’s difficult—I did not get into the decision-making of who received surgery. This was your neurosurgeon, and you had to conserve his strength. And triage is based upon who is most apt to survive, yet is critical. Who can wait, who’s most critical, and most likely to survive? Really, there’s no way to describe that, is there? Now, I did not get into that decision-making process, so perhaps this is all part of protecting me from the post traumatic stress syndrome because we did not lose a patient in our operating room the whole year I was there. They all survived and went to recovery.
TS: That’s remarkable.
NC: You see? And some of the wounds were pretty, pretty devastating. Lot of trauma. You know, amputees and the head injuries. Now if you only have one neurosurgeon, he can only work just so long. So he may do two cases. The individuals that would get caught up in what I look at as the stress area would be your nurses who were taking care of those who were put in a hold area as potentially not going to survive.
TS: Is that what they called “the expectant?”
NC: Expectant. See, and I didn’t—so as an operating room nurse, we were protected—at the field hospital more so than my twin at the surg hospital. My twin, she and I, we really didn’t get into things until after we were together maybe fifteen or twenty years past that we even talked about our experiences, just because you didn’t talk about it. [The surgical hospital] was where she would, as an operating room nurse, be able to go out on the wards in the evening when they weren’t doing surgery. And she remembers mentoring this young lieutenant who was in the age grouping of your young men, helping her sort out, “Can she do the job?” and being very encouraging to her in that she could, and is still friends with that young lady today. She’s president of our Retired Army Nurse Corps Association. A lot of crossovers, you know, that you meet up. So I don’t know whether I answered your question or not.
TS: Oh, sure, you’re fine. Whatever you’re telling me, Nancy, is just wonderful. But here is—
NC: So I—You wanted to know what I did. So during the day I was in the operating room and we were working at taking care of the injuries that come in. Also took care of some Vietnamese that would be injured. Not many. They were usually out in the other hospitals. And then during the evenings, I would be working on this manual. And then the other times—
What’s interesting, Therese, and people would be, I know, would say, “Was there drugs? Were there a lot of drugs?” They hear of the drugs and the drinking. I did not get involved in—26
Alcohol is a drug, but I didn’t get into [illegal] drugs, per se, like our troops did. And to say that they didn’t would be denying the whole aspect. But I did my share of drinking over there, but the army didn’t teach me to drink. I did my share of drinking in the civilian community when I was drinking that can of beer back at my nursing school, you see. But it was more readily available. But when you can get a bottle of Drambuie, expensive cordial, isn’t it? I was drinking Drambuie on the rocks because the bottle only cost two dollars and fifty cents! How much is it here? Fifteen, twenty dollars? [pause]
So that—a lot of hard playing, too. I think that goes part and parcel of really—Well, that’s just like in life here. When I was here working in the hospitals, my evenings I was out dancing, going to the local hoedown out there in Plainfield, New Jersey, having a beer or two, and listening to country western music, and hipping it up.
So that—I received the Bronze Star, which is one of the awards that you can get only in hostile areas, as opposed to the Army Commendation Medal, and the air force has theirs. The Bronze Star—and your troops get it with Vs for valor and this type thing. And I feel that the reason for this was because of my above and beyond the call of duty of not just working in the operating room, but working in conjunction with the chief nurse and the staff and developing the manual, that’s where it’s called going above and beyond. Plus when you had the flaps and the—
TS: The flaps?
NC: Are you interested—
TS: Flaps are like—
NC: Flaps are the casualties coming in. That only occurred twice that I remember. And you know, that’s what’s interesting, too. We lived in fixed buildings next to the hospital that had a flat roof that you could go up on the roof. And, honestly, you know, when they were mortaring Than Son Nhut, we gals were up on that roof looking the mortars come in. Now, we weren’t really given any direction like take cover, like if you have a tornado coming get in the bathroom and protect yourself. We were out watching the fireworks. And then what came to mind was, “Oh, we’re going to get casualties from here,” because that’s your basically a military base, even though it was an international airport. Lot of military over there. And that’s exactly what happened. So that happened twice.
TS: Well we should probably take a break.
NC: Do you know it’s ten [minutes] after 12 [pm]?
TS: I know. I don’t think we’re done yet, though, Nancy.
[recording paused]
NC: Okay, we’re starting another segment with Nancy Christ. Go ahead, Nancy. You were talking about you can’t remember the names of any of the patients. [Continues in Part two]