Music
[Bombs exploding and artillery fire sounds]
[Narrator:] Summer, 1945, and the war is one million men old.
[Machine gun fire in bursts]
[Dramatic music]
[Speaker 1:] Hang on kid. Keep your eyes shut tight and drink.
They're moving you back now. Don't give up, just hang on.
The road back is bumpy and maybe the pain blurs your eyes, but listen:
The sound of battle grows dim.
And now one question cuts clearly through the haze: Which man will you be?
The one who gets hurt and dies?
Or the one who gets hurt and lives?
When the dizziness stops, when the fog clears,
an army nurse will be at your side.
A woman who has meant safety and comfort and home
to thousands of men before you, a woman who will mean all those things to you.
A nurse brought another American's blood to your side
to pour new strength into your veins.
A nurse handed clamps to the surgeon and counted sponges.
A nurse prepared and administered the anesthetic
and watched you constantly for any telltale change in your breathing
or blood pressure. All of them working with the same purpose:
to ease the pain of war, to help save lives.
[Music increases]
The preparation for the moment that would bring the Army nurse to your side
began months ago back home in the United States.
It started with four weeks of basic training.
In those days, perhaps the nurse wondered why she had to sit through seemingly endless classes
and submit to rigid discipline.
Often while muscles ached and groaned,
she may have wondered why it was necessary
to take those long hikes or grope her way through a gassed area.
Yet, there were demands that would require of her perfect physical health and stamina,
the strength to stand up under the rigors of combat nursing.
Now, when the four weeks of basic training are finished,
the Army nurse is ready to serve, no matter where her assignment may take her.
She might find herself stationed in a general hospital right here at home,
or perhaps she'll find herself assigned to a mobile hospital unit overseas.
After she arrives, she may have to help build the very hospital
in which she is to work. For the field hospital or the evacuation hospital,
like a circus, must be able to pack up and move on at a moment's notice.
Its primary function is to offer immediate surgical treatment
to the wounded, and that means following ever-changing battle lines.
Everyone pitches in when a mobile hospital goes up:
enlisted men, doctors, and nurses.
Just one small instance where basic training pays off, those muscles
toughened and hardened during the four weeks of basic back home are equal to the job.
In the field, the Army nurse lives roughly and works gently.
There is no glamour, and her life is far from spectacular.
She sleeps under hastily pitched canvas on a GI cot under GI blankets.
She trains her mind to act as an alarm clock, because time is important.
A wasted moment may mean a wasted life.
She lives a life completely stripped of luxuries, and yet,
she has asked for no more luxury than a patient's smile when the pain is eased.
She eats regular GI rations,
the same as the rest of the Army does and often at irregular times.
The hours are long and the demands never ending, and as a result,
the nurse has learned to make use of every moment of her off duty time.
A GI helmet may not be exactly what she'd choose to wear to her
kid sister's wedding, but it makes up for its lack of style by its versatility.
It's a beauty parlor, laundry, cooking pot, wash basin, and anything else you
might wish to call it, a little community in size seven.
She may spend some of her time writing letters,
not the "having a wonderful time, wish you were here" kind,
but letters filled with all the drama of her days, with stories of the courage
and spirit of the men over whom she watches.
She may devote a few moments to prayer,
others to lounging about talking of home.
She may long to wear the evening dress sent from home,
but probably only gets the chance to talk about it.
Usually, she wears olive drab or battle gray and is battle-ready throughout the day,
on duty or off. Her uniform at all times is her badge of service.
But however she spends her time, she always wants to return to the
hospital where the wounded are fighting for their lives.
For first and foremost, and at all times, she is a nurse,
offering professional and skilled care
to the sick and wounded. A nurse first, a woman second, and an officer third
might well serve as the slogan for every member of the nurses corps.
Complete recovery of the patient depends not only upon the use of drugs,
but on the skill with which they are administered and the care that follows.
The nurse must be capable of recognizing at once any symptoms
in her patients which demand immediate treatment,
because if serious consequences are to be avoided,
medical treatment must be on hand the moment any symptoms appear.
Professionally skilled and capable, in her there is the
tenderness of all women, of mother and sister and friend.
Her touch and voice lend encouragement, instill hope.
It's the surgeon who saves a man's life.
It's the nurse whose loving care helps him to live.
[Music]
The crisis has passed.
The patients begin to sleep again.
Now, the pain is just a bad memory.
The field hospital is a stopover to give them immediate surgical treatment
as soon as possible after they're wounded.
[Music]
[15th. Evacuation Hospital]
The evacuation hospital is also just a stopover on the trip back through the medical chain.
Here, facilities for treatment are more complete than those of the field hospital.
And here, too, the nurse plays an increasingly important part
in the vital period of treatment and convalescence.
After three or four days,
the patients are well enough for the trip back to the general hospital.
Trains will be waiting for them, hospital wards on wheels.
[Music]
Each train carries, in addition to medical officers and enlisted technicians,
four surgical nurses and two medical nurses, all of whom
are on duty from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM
and as far into the night as they are needed.
When speed means life, evacuation may take place by plane.
Because of these flying hospitals, men are alive today
who otherwise would have died in the jungles of Burma or on the beaches of Normandy.
These patients are thoroughly checked before the take off.
They will be watched over and checked again when the plane lands.
While in the air, the flight nurse is in complete charge.
She is ready to handle every emergency and does everything a doctor would have to do, except operate.
Air evacuation is difficult.
It requires specialized skill and training, and the flight nurse must be prepared
for the unexpected, for the next moment it may happen.
At the general hospital in the theater of operation,
other skilled teams of surgeons and nurses stand ready to take over
where the frontline hospitals left off.
Whether a hospital is under canvas out in the field or in a solid structure in a city,
it's routine, like the nurses routine, doesn't vary, and its principal aim remains fixed: to offer the best
possible medical care to the sick and wounded.
Nurses sterilize the operating equipment, the surgical gowns and gloves,
prepare drugs, lay out the instruments the doctor will need for his next operation,
and keep accurate records of each patient's history and progress.
While in a civilian hospital the ratio is one nurse to every three beds, in an army hospital,
it's a great many times that number.
To help lift the burden from the nurse's shoulders, enlisted technicians trained in special schools
will be assigned to work under her direct supervision.
One of her biggest jobs is to teach these technicians both in the classroom and
in the hospital wards.
This means added responsibility for the nurse, for although she will
have less personal contact with her patients,
she must direct the activities of the personnel assigned to her
so that the treatment and well-being of her patients is assured.
Relaxation and entertainment are an important part of medical treatment.
To this general hospital overseas comes an all-star show,
and the Army nurse shares the fun with her patients.
The sound of laughter from home often means more than medicine.
[Applause]
Later on, she may spend a few minutes with the star,
and there may be times when she herself is the star of the show,
like this nurse, the first woman to land on Bougainville. [Bougainville Campaign]
The umpire calls batter up and the game is on: army versus army,
as the nurses play the WACs.
[Music]
This infield may never play in the Polo Grounds,
but maybe one of their patients will.
[Crowd cheering, applause]
Off duty for a while, some nurses may choose to stroll through the streets and buildings of an ancient city.
Others may prefer a round of golf,
or a swim somewhere if the weather is right.
But it's always back to duty, back to the sick and wounded, back to the hospital,
around which the life of the Army nurse revolves.
Those patients scheduled for a trip back home
for the final period of convalescence travel on a hospital ship,
as fully equipped as a stationary hospital.
Now as before, the Army nurse stands by ready to administer to every need.
[Music]
Next stop, a debarkation hospital,
[Music, "My Country 'Tis of Thee"]
then a general hospital in the United States and complete recovery.
And this is the end of the long chain of evacuation, the general hospital back home.
Here, the Army nurse works patiently with her hands, her head, and her heart.
Here, she gently guides men back to the way of life they fought to protect.
Although she may have volunteered to serve overseas,
although she may chafe at what she considers the inactivity of working in a hospital in the United States or Alaska or Panama,
the Army nurse soon learns that a battle line is wherever a soldier is stationed.
What words of praise can measure up to these women, whose very lives
are given to nursing a wounded man, a million wounded men, back to life and health?
And yet, praise is offered.
Long hours of tireless service are remembered and recognized.
The Army nurse, decorated for bravery and valor, above and beyond the call of duty.
And these nurses imprisoned for three long years by the Japanese
ask only that they be returned to duty, for they will never forget the faces of the American men
tortured and killed by the enemy. Wherever transports are taking our soldiers,
they are also taking the Army nurse,
to work by day, by night on distant battlefields, to help make shattered bodies whole,
to bring smiles to faces twisted with pain,
to serve at the side of the man hurt by war, directly by shellfire or indirectly by disease.
This is the Army nurse, USA,
ready to serve anywhere, under any circumstances, in time of need.
[Music]