The Army Nurse . . . 
The Army Nurse is the Army Doctor’s 
right hand. Without her, the present high 
standard of health among our soldiers, 
and the gratifying percentage of recovery 
of battle casualties, would be impossible. 
NORMAN T. KIRK, 
MAJOR GENERAL, U. S. ARMY, 
THE SURGEON GENERAL. Nursing Began — With the First Heartbeat of Man 
time immemorial, woman has sought to 
heal man’s hurts. The development from super- 
stition and witchcraft to the medical miracles of 
today represents not only the advance of healing 
to the position of both an art and a science, 
but the constant and ever more effective oper- 
ation of an age-old human instinct. Concurrent 
with that growth has been the emergence of a 
ready ally of doctor and patient alike in the 
battle against pain and death — the nurse. The origins of nursing lie deep in the unrecorded 
past. Among even the most ancient peoples there 
is a persisting tradition of hospitality, of care for 
the sick wayfarer, while the earliest organized 
care of the sick is apparently connected with the 
shrines and temples of the pre-Christian era. 
The advent of Christianity gave impetus to the 
growth of those conceptions of charity and mercy 
whereby ladies undertook the care of the sick as 
a religious duty, and its development is marked 
by the rise of religions orders primarily devoted 
to the care of the poor and sick, such as the 
Beguines, an order of nursing sisters originating 
in Flanders, and the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, 
an order founded in Paris in 1655, By the mid- 
nineteenth century there were active on the 
Continent twelve thousand members of the latter 
order alone. 
The beginning of scientific training of nurses 
must he viewed as an aspect of nineteenth century 
liberal reform, an early manifestation of which 
was the activity of Theodor Fliedner, a German 
Protestant divine, whose interest in social reform 
had been stimulated through his familiarity with 
the work of Elizabeth Fry, known for her efforts 
in behalf of prison reform in England. FliedneFs 
concern for the care of the sick poor led to his 
founding, in 1836, of a hospital and training 
center for nurses at Kaiserwerth, an institution 
which Florence Nightingale was to study with 
much profit. This was the first of those institutions 
which, with those in England and elsewhere, were 
to banish forever from the scene the ignorant, 
slovenly, and drunken type of so-called nurse 
immortalized by Dickens in Sairey Gamp. In 
1840, Mrs. Fry’s organization of nursing sisters 
was founded, and in 1872, a Boston hospital 
offered the first training course for nurses in 
America. 
Nursing as a profession had been born. Hospital, about 1500, from an old drawing 
Hospital in Paris, about 1660 
Elizabeth Fry 
An eighteenth century hospital 
3 The Birth of Military Nursing 
No sketch, however cursory, of either military 
or civilian nursing could overlook the titanic 
achievements of Florence Nightingale. Here is a 
romantic and heroic story, but perhaps more 
significant than any of the scores of fascinating 
and dramatic incidents with which her career 
abounds, are the simple ungarnished statistics: 
The death rate in military hospitals of the 
Crimean War in February, 1855, was forty-two 
percent. Four months later it was two percent. 
That was the work of the Lady with the Lamp. 
To her self-appointed task of revolutionary re- 
form in the field of nursing, Florence Nightingale 
brought a background of knowledge of the best 
institutional and nursing practice then available. 
She had studied both the work of the Sisters of 
St. Vincent de Paul and that of Fliedner’s Institute 
at Kaiserwerth. During the year 1854 all England 
became aroused by the reported state of care — 
The Nightingale Pledge 
I SOLEMNLY PLEDGE MYSELF BE- 
FORE GOD AND IN THE PRESENCE 
OF THIS ASSEMBLY: 
TO pass my life in purity and to practice 
my profession faithfully. 
I WILL abstain from whatever is delete- 
rious and mischievous, and will not take 
or knowingly administer any harmful drug. 
I WILL do all in my power to maintain 
and elevate the standard of my profession, 
and will hold in confidence all personal 
matters committed to my keeping, and all 
family affairs coming to my knowledge in 
the practice of my profession. 
WITH loyalty will I endeavor to aid the 
physician in his work, and devote myself 
to the welfare of those committed to my care. 
This pledge was formulated in 1893 by a committee 
of which Mrs. Lystra E. Gretter, R.N., was chairman or rather, lack of it — accorded the sick and 
wounded in the Crimea, and Florence Nightingale, 
then superintendent of a London hospital, offered 
her services. Proceeding to the Crimea with a 
staff of nurses, she embarked on a program of 
systematic care of the wounded. Regarded as a 
revolutionary innovator, she was obliged to battle 
tradition and entrenched military obduracy, hut 
to such good effect that the statistical miracle 
mentioned above became a reality. 
The traditional figure of the Lady with the 
Lamp, the angel of mercy, though quite accurate, 
is perhaps a representation of less ultimate im- 
portance than the equally accurate one of a 
tireless and hard-headed fighter, battling for 
efficient organization. To Florence Nightingale 
must go the credit for replacing doubtless well- 
meaning, but haphazard individual effort, with 
the carefully organized system that alone can 
save lives. Her reforms both in military nursing 
and in nursing education have had far-reaching 
effect. Every nurse and every soldier from 
that day to this has been greatly in her debt. 
Nursing in a military hospital of the Crimean War 
Women as Army nurses — Florence Nightingale’s innovation American Military Nursing 
.Although organized military nursing as we 
know it today stems only from the middle of the 
last century, women were caring for soldiers as 
far back as the time of the Knights Hospitallers 
of the Order of St. John, and American women 
have cared for our soldiers in every war in which 
this Nation has been engaged. 
In 1775, at the recommendation of General 
Washington, a bill was adopted by Congress which 
created a hospital department for the Army, and 
called for, among others, a matron “to supervise 
the nurses, bedding, and so forth,*’ and nurses “to 
attend the sick and obey the matron’s orders.” 
Further allusions to nurses of this period are 
to be found in sections of a plan of regulation 
for the general hospital, prepared for General 
Washington and submitted by him to Congress: 
“12. That a matron be allowed to every hun- 
dred sick or wounded, who shall take care that 
the provisions are properly prepared; that the 
wards, beds, and utensils be kept in neat order; 
and that the most exact (economy be observed in 
her department. “13. That a nurse be allowed for every ten 
sick or wounded, who shall he under the direction 
of the matron.” 
Provision was made for payment for matrons, 
one-half dollar a day and one ration, and for 
“nurses, each, twenty-four-ninetieths of a dollar 
a day, and one ration.’* 
This modest emolument was princely when 
compared to an earlier hill which specified only 
“one-fifteenth of a dollar per day, or $2 a month.” 
When General Gates reported on conditions on 
the northern frontier, one of his major points 
was that “the sick suffered much for want of 
good female nurses,” while the record of the 
Council of Safety for the New York Convention, 
November 29, 1776, notes payment to one Esther 
Burke “for ten weeks nursing sick soldiers, 
£5, 10s.” 
These brief official allusions tell only part of 
the story of nursing in the Revolutionary Army, 
since much of it was done by the women who 
simply followed their men to war. There are 
many stories of wives who dressed their husbands’ 
wounds on the field of battle itself. Of these 
women we have only a few names. The many 
others must remain unknown — unknown, hut 
not unhonored. 
7 Nursing in the Civil War 
reputation as an effective crusader for better 
conditions in the care and treatment of the insane, 
was appointed superintendent of women nurses, 
“to select and assign women nurses to general 
or permanent military hospitals, they not to be 
employed in such hospitals without her sanction 
and approval, except in cases of urgent need.” 
Miss Dix, a woman of the highest integrity, 
found herself in the difficult position of having 
great personal authority, hut with no function- 
ing organization behind her. She had been 
assigned an impossible task, and her accompish- 
ments are the more remarkable in the face of 
it. Due to the lack of a single unified corps 
with official status, policy was determined by the 
individual medical officers on the spot, and their 
attitude ranged from grateful co-operation in 
some cases to indifference or downright hostility 
in others. 
The administrative picture is further confused 
by the fact that, in addition to those nurses who 
had been approved by Miss Dix or the medical 
authorities, there were other groups doing similar 
or related work: the Sisters of Charity; casual 
Dorothea Dix 
The story of the women nurses in the Civil War 
is one of great individual devotion and heroism 
on the one hand, and a deplorable lack of unified 
administrative organization on the other. 
At the very outbreak of the war, Miss Dorothea 
Dix, who already had achieved a Nation-wide 
8 employees; women who simply accompanied regi- 
ments without any official standing whatever; and 
employees of the U. S. Sanitary and other Com- 
missions which were semiprivate welfare agencies. 
If nursing in the Civil War was an organizational 
failure, and it must be so conceded (though valu- 
able lessons were ultimately learned from the 
chaotic picture it presented), the record is one 
of blazing individual sacrifice and achievement 
against great odds. 
We have some contemporary accounts — such 
as the hasty notes scribbled on scrap paper by 
Miss Georgey Woolsey to her sister from Fairfax 
Seminary Hospital in Alexandria: 
“All right. Hard work, dirt and death every- 
where . . . Men are continually brought in and 
stowed away in filthy warehouses called distribu- 
tion stations . . . They are frightfully wounded 
and die in numbers in the stations. No provision 
whatever for feeding them is made by the Gov- 
ernment, beyond hardtack and coffee. We go 
about among them and feed them. I have a 
room of special cases near by, besides the general 
station. Three of these died last night. Care came 
too late. They had been several days on the field 
after being shot.” 
Women of the Civil War period sought the same opportunity to serve then as our Army nurses find today 
A newspaper correspondent gives the following 
account of these nurses, which, albeit in the rather 
purple prose fancied in that era, bears the mark 
of sincerity: 
‘■‘’Hundreds of volunteer nurses, many of them 
wives, sisters, and mothers, came from every walk 
of life to join in the work of mercy. Hands 
hardened with toil, and hands that leisure and 
luxury left white and soft, were bathing fevered 
brows, supporting wearied heads, washing repul- 
sive wounds, combing matted and bloody locks. 
9 “Patient forms kept nightly vigils beside the 
couches; gentle tones dropped priceless words of 
sympathy; and, when all was over, tender hands 
closed the fixed eyes, and smoothed the hair upon 
the white foreheads. Thousands of poor fellows 
carried to their homes, both North and South, 
grateful memories of those heroic women . . . ” 
The touching gratitude of the men was evi- 
denced then as it is today. As one Civil War 
nurse wrote: 
“Appreciation is grateful to all, and the Army 
nurse received it without measure from those to 
whom she daily ministered. To hear a soldier 
say as he bade her goodbye to join his regiment, 
after having been nursed back to health, 4You 
have saved my life,’ was the richest compensation 
she could have received.” 
And Louisa May Alcott tells of a grateful 
patient, whom the author of Little Women had 
cared for when she was working at the Union 
Hotel Hospital in Georgetown, D. C. He was a 
little old man, and spoke to her in a rich Irish 
brogue: “May your bed above be aisy darlin’, 
for the day’s work ye are doom” 
Our own Civil War brought to the attention of the Nation the need for a 
systematized form of nursing such as we now have in the Army Nurse Corps \ iirsing in |ho S|Kiiiisli-.\morieiin War 
that w ar. which hore out the findings of observers 
of the ( Tvil War experience, that unified direction 
and control within the Army framew ork itself was 
the only way to avoid administrative confusion 
and assure maximum efficiency in the care of the 
sick and wounded. 
At the outbreak of the war Dr. Anita Newcomb 
McGee, director of the Hospital Corps of the 
Daughters of the American Revolution, was en- 
trusted with the responsibility of passing on the 
qualifications of nurses who sought appointment 
as nurses under contract to the Army, a role not 
unlike that of Dorothea Dix in the Civil War. Only 
graduate nurses endorsed by their schools were 
accepted, assuring a high standard of professional 
competence. These nurses received thirty dollars 
a month, plus rations, and Dr. McGee’s efforts 
were so successful that within about two weeks 
of taking office, she had a force of twelve 
hundred nurses. 
However, a considerable volume of nursing 
assistance was forthcoming from private sources. 
Ihe fact that “contract” nurses were subject to 
Army control and regulation, while the others 
Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee, Acting Assistant Surgeon, 
under whose able guidance the ANC teas founded 
The record of the nurses in the Spanish- 
American War was such as to convince the last of 
the skeptics, if such remained, of not only the 
propriety hut the necessity of w omen in military 
nursing. The organization of the Army Nurse 
Corps as an integral part of the Army was the 
direct outgrowth of the lessons learned during 
11 were paid by private sources and were subject to 
orders from private individuals, did not make for 
the utmost in harmony and efficiency, to say the 
least. This, coupled with the recognition of the 
indisputable value of women nurses, made it 
imperative that the status of the Army nurse he 
clarified and officially regulated. Dr. McGee, who 
had been appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon, 
herself wrote the section dealing with the Nurse 
Corps of the Army organization bill, passed in 
February 1901, which established the Nurse 
Corps as a definite component of the Army. 
The confused administrative picture, and the 
frictions inevitably arising between rival groups, 
should not be permitted to obscure the picture of 
devoted and heroic service, both at home and 
abroad, created by the nurses of "98. Contract 
nurses served in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and 
the Philippines, as well as on the hospital ship 
“Relief.” Thirteen nurses died in the service, one 
of whom had allowed herself to be infected in 
the interest of yellow fever research, and died a 
martyr to science and to humanity. 
A nurse’s notes attached to a faded picture of 
the Field Hospital at Coamo, Puerto Rico, give an 
impression of the conditions in the field which the 
nurses of ‘98 had to cope with: 
In the ward tents, Sternberg Hospital, Manila, Philippine Islands 
Fortress Monroe, Virginia, general and field hospital 
12 “The nurses quartered in an old Spanish house 
in Coamo, located in a banana grove. We drove to 
camp in mule ambulances, put in long hours and 
chased lizards which dropped into our beds, and 
fleas, and had to watch for tarantulas at night. 
Sick men from 3rd Wisconsin, 16th Pennsylvania, 
and 3rd Kentucky Regiments cared for by Army 
Nurses. All water for any purpose hauled in 
barrels from a spring more than a mile away. 
Tents crowded, typhoid fever, dysentery and 
diarrhea, conditions bad, no ice, no diet kitchen/’ 
Ward in an Army hospital at San Juan, Puerto Rico 
Military General Hospital and its staff, Santiago, Cuba The U.S.S. Cartago carried these Army nurses to France in 1918 
Army nurses in France were trained in gas defense 
A comfort then, as now, boiling water was eagerly sought by these nurses at the former race-track stable serving as their kitchen in France 
14 Wo phi War I 
irmy nurses en route to hospital unit in France 
At Base Hospital 52, in France. Army nurses hid smiling farewell to patient 
Julia C. Stirnson, Director, Nursing Service, 
AEF, and subseepient Superintendent, ANC 
When the United States declared war on 
Germany in 1917 there were only 403 nurses in 
the Corps, and even this small number repre- 
sented an increase of 100% brought about by 
the Mexican Border crisis. Within eighteen 
months the number had increased to 21,480. 
These hare statistics indicate an undertaking 
of unprecedented proportions, and one which would have been almost impossible without the 
unified control provided by the comparatively 
recently organized Corps. 
Only graduate nurses were accepted, and they 
were assigned to cantonment, general and special 
military hospitals located in all parts of the 
United States. Of these nurses, 10,400 were sent 
overseas, and served in England, France, Italy, 
Belgium, and Siberia. They were assigned to 
base, evacuation, mobile, camp and convalescent 
hospitals, and to casualty clearing stations. They 
also served on hospital trains, transports, and 
with surgical teams in field hospitals. 
Ear, eye, nose, and throat clinic at a base hospital, Savenay, France 
Operating room in a hospital unit, Aulnois-sur-Vertuzy, France Stretcher bearers load wounded soldiers in hospital train 
American soldier, wounded in the Argonne, is cared for by Army nurses 
General Pershing conversing with nurses in France 
Army nurses’ graves at Mars-sur-Allier, Nievre, France Surgery and modern medicine 
have worked wonders for our 
H ounded men at the front. But 
the Army nurse understands 
too, the miracle of the little 
things that help, the smile, 
the pat of encouragement, the 
letter she writes for her patient 
18 World Wair II 
Corps, even though the pay and allowances were 
not the same as for the men. Thus, the position of 
the Army nurse, which from its beginning had 
been one of dignity, was improved by definitely 
fixing the status of the nurse and giving formal 
recognition to the place of the Corps in the 
military establishment. All nurses with the 
Army are now Army nurses — members of the 
Army Nurse Corps. Even as recently as the last 
war there were some Red Cross nurses on duty 
with the Army. These nurses were under the 
jurisdiction of the Red Cross rather than the 
Army. The Red Cross continues, however, its 
valuable function as the procurement agency for 
Army nurses. By act of Congress, retirement for 
length of service and disability is now granted to 
Army nurses, and on June 22, 1944, President 
Roosevelt signed a bill giving real instead of rela- 
tive rank to officers of the Corps for the duration 
of the war. This became effective July 10, 1944. 
Following World War I, the Nurse Corps, 
like the rest of the Army, gradually decreased 
in size, until in 1939 the membership had 
dropped to 625. When the National Emergency 
Colonel Florence Blanchfield, Superintendent, ANC 
Mn recognition of their outstanding work in 
World War I, relative rank for members of the 
Army Nurse Corps was provided by Congress in 
an amendment to the National Defense Act on 
June 4. 1920, placing them on the status of 
officers and adding much to the prestige of the 
19 was declared in 1939, the Nurse Corps was 
authorized to increase to 949 but in 1940 it 
became necessary to appoint reserve nurses once 
more. The subsequent growth of the Corps has 
been phenomenal: 
1940 . . 1,657 1941 . . 7,262 
1942 . . 21,257 1943 . . 36,607 
1944 . . 39,500 — (As of May 31) 
The U. S. Army nurse in World War II is at 
work in every quarter of the globe. In Nissen 
huts in Iceland, in tents in the jungles of South 
Pacific islands, at every battle front, and on the 
beachheads where our troops have established 
themselves only hours previously, she is saving 
precious lives. She serves on land, on the sea in 
hospital ships, and in the air, evacuating the 
wounded by plane. 
For her duties in this war she has trained 
under battle conditions, she has learned new 
front-line techniques, and has at her disposal 
methods and equipment undreamed of in pre- 
vious wars. The unbelievably high rate of recovery 
of battle casualties is the measure of her success. 
The story of the Army nurse in this war is 
one of devotion, of heroism and sacrifice, of 
compassion, and of cheerfulness. More than this, 
it is the story of glorious achievement beyond 
the limits of the most sanguine expectation. 
A Nurse at the Front 
An Army nurse on the fighting front writes 
as follows: 
“I wish every nurse at home could see some of 
those boys, refusing to be disheartened no matter 
how badly wounded, having only one interest — 
to get hack in the fight, knock out the enemy, 
and get home to a peaceful America. I remem- 
ber particularly one hoy with a femoral artery 
severed, terribly anemic, with danger of gan- 
grene and ultimate amputation. ‘Take care of 
my buddy first,’ he said when he was brought in. 
‘He’s worse off than I am.’ We knew differently. 
“Don’t let anyone back home tell you that the 
combat zone is no place for nurses. It is, defi- 
nitely. Just see what a bedside nurse can do to 
boost the morale of any injured GI Joe. Just 
a pat on the head, blankets smoothed, and a 
woman’s smiling face for a man to look up into 
— sometimes it’s almost better than plasma. 
“A badly wounded infantryman said to me the 
other day, ‘How can you nurses be so cheerful 
when you have so much to put up with?' We 
looked at him in amazement. ‘Men like you, 
soldier,’ we thought, ‘you’re the reason. No 
Army nurse could look you in the eye if she 
weren’t able to take it, just the way you do*." Water purification in the field 
Nurses bivouac in field 
Fox holes provide cover 
Gas defense 
Army nurses are inured to battlefield conditions A major in the Army Nurse Corps delivers a classroom lecture 
Members of the ANC learn how the Army makes beds 
Malaria control and discipline are illustrated jor Army nurses 
Army nurses learn military first aid 
The field ration is explained to Army nurses Army nurses boiling water in the field, Anzio beachhead, Italy 
Army flight nurses on bivouac hike in the Hawaiian mountains 
Army nurses admire necklace made by native in North Africa 
Army nurses in China bargain for rickshaw ride 
Army nurses find walking muddy in Aleutian Army nurses pass in review “somewhere” in Wales 
Army nurses were among the first to land in France 
Three days in Australia and mail from home! 
The Army nurse in Iceland works in a modern, well-equipped ward Protected by its distinctive markings, this Army 
hospital ship brings wounded safely home 
This view of a ward on an Army hospital ship 
is typical of the interiors of such vessels 
Hospital Ship Wounded are evacuated speedily to hospitals in 
the United States aboard Army transport planes 
An Army flight nurse accompanies the wounded as 
they are evacuated by plane to hospitals at home 
Flying Aiiikiilsinee 
26 Equipped for every type of surgery, hospital 
trains like this speed the wounded home by rail 
An Army nurse and an enlisted man attend a soldier 
in a typical ward car aboard a hospital train 
Hospital Train First medical aid to wounded men is given in the field 
An ambulance collects and carries wounded to the rear 
The clearing station — emergency surgery 
At the field hospital. Army nurses help surgeons prepare for operation 
Surgical tent at evacuation hospital, where wounded receive further treatment Homeward bound — Army nurses care for the wounded on this hospital ship 
Army flight nurses attend wounded who are evacuated by plane 
The end of the long chain of evacuation! At the left is an Army station hospital. A big Army general hospital is shown at the right. At such hospitals as these, 
here in the United States, wounded receive expert medical care until they are ready to return to duty or are given medical discharges and sent back home Roll of Honor 
Jt is impossible to draw up an honor roll of 
Army nurses. Their acts of heroism and of 
courage are the unwritten history of every day 
of war. Official decorations and citations there 
are, hut these are only part of the story. 
In World War I, three members of the Army 
Nurse Corps received the Distinguished Service 
Cross; twenty-three the Distinguished Service 
Medal; twenty-eight the Croix de Guerre; sixty- 
nine the British Royal Red Cross and two the 
British Military Medal. Many were cited for 
meritorious service in the United States Army 
orders and a number were mentioned in British 
Army Dispatches. 
In World War II, for the first time in the history 
of the U. S. Army, women have been decorated 
with the Silver Star. They were nurses of the 
Army Nurse Corps serving on the Anzio beach- 
head with the Fifth Army in Italy. Others have 
received the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, 
the Soldier s Medal, and the Air Medal, the latter 
two being the first such awards ever made to 
women. Bronze Stars have also been awarded 
to Army nurses. 
They have given their lives in this war. Six 
nurses were killed in the bombing of a hospital 
on the Anzio beachhead, and an Army hospital 
ship, the first of six similar vessels, has been 
named after one of these nurses, Blanche F, 
Sigman. An Army general hospital in Chicago 
has been named in honor of the first nurse to 
meet her death in a theater of operations in this 
war, Second Lieutenant Ruth M. Gardiner, killed 
in a plane crash in Alaska, while serving as an 
air evacuation nurse. 
In the early hours of the invasion of the Con- 
tinent from England, U. S. Army nurses were 
already on the beachheads, preparing casualties 
for evacuation. 
They will continue to follow our fighting men, 
sharing their peril as well as healing their hurts. 
General Pershing decorating 
Julia C. Stimson in France 
Army Nurse Corps Superintendents 
Dita H. Kinney . . . 1901-1909 
Jane A. Delano . . . 1909-1912 
Isabel McIsaac . . . 1912-1914 
Dora E. Thompson . . 1914-1919 
Julia C. Stimson . . 1919-1937 
Julia O. Flikke . . . 1937-1943 
30 TTniforins of the Army Nurse Corps 
Some of the uniforms worn by Army nurses. At the top,left to right: Brown-und-white-striped seersucker hospital 
uniform; flight nurse’s high altitude suit; flight nurse’s uniform; field hospital uniform; olive-drab service uniform. 
Bottom: Beige summer service uniform; white hospital uniform; blue dress uniform; beige one-piece off-duty dress. "I am Iho Nurse” 
I am the nurse. 
I ivalk with him 
In his world of pain. 
He is the warrior 
become a boy again 
Returned to us 
in the backwash of war. 
By God, given back to us, 
to make whole. 
I am the nurse. 
But I am so few and he .. . 
your wounded man . . . 
is legion ! 
Women, mothers of men, 
stand ivith me 
in the dark of night 
. . . and listen. 
Do you hear the murmur 
of a million lips? 
Do you hear . . . 
the call for help, 
rising in pitch 
Above the death-belch of 
cannon . . . 
Calling from the heavens, 
through the whine 
of crushed wings . . . 
Bubbling through the ocean s 
swell. . . touching 
at every shore? 
Yes, you hear it.. . the call 
of hurt. 
You are a woman and, hearing, 
you must heed. 
When his teeth are clenched 
in pain . . . upon a womans 
name . . . 
Mine is the hand that soothes. 
When his eyes are set 
upon a woman s face, 
cherished image plucked 
through space, 
Mine are the words that calm. 
I am the nurse. 
Stricken in heart with 
the single fear 
That against the growing need 
my numbers cannot prevail. 
For I am so few and he .. . 
is legion 
tvho asks our aid. 
Add your hands to mine 
women, mothers of men. 
Lest I he too few, 
lest victory hang 
like a mocking mask 
Upon our Nation's honor ! 
Registered nurses who are not yet forty-five may 
be eligible for membership in the U. S. Army 
Nurse Corps. Application should he made to 
the Surgeon General. U. S. Army, Washington 
25, D. C., or to a Red Cross Procurement Office. 
Senior Cadet nurses of the U. S. Cadet Nurse 
Corps are eligible for transfer to Army hospi- 
tals for the completion of their training, and 
for subsequent appointment, if they desire, as 
second lieutenants in the Army Nurse Corps. 
Qualified nurses’ aides, graduates of Red Cross 
training classes, who have had at least 150 
hours of subsequent hospital experience, may he 
employed in Army hospitals. This is full-time, 
paid employment, with Civil Service status. 
32 Pledge of the Army Nurse 
As an Army nurse, I accept the responsibilities of an officer in the Army Nurse Corps 
I shall give faithful care to the men who fight for the freedom of this Country 
and to the women who stand behind them 
I shall bring to the American soldier wherever he may be the best of my knowledge 
and professional skill 
I shall approach him cheerfully at all times under any conditions I may find 
I shall endeavor to maintain the highest nursing standards possible in the performance 
of my duties 
I shall appear fearless in the presence of danger and quiet the fears of others to the 
best of my ability 
My only criticism shall be constructive. The reputation and good name of the Army 
Nurse Corps and of the nursing profession shall be uppermost in my thoughts, second 
only to the care of my patients 
I shall endeavor to be a credit to my Country and to the uniform I wear 
; * «T*TI » WM« 
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