Black Nurses, Then and Now

“Despite the surgeon general’s plea for more nurses to enlist, the army set a quota of 56 black nurses. However, the NACGN helped to abolish this quota, and by the end of World War II, more than 500 black nurses had served in the army and four had served in the navy.”

Nurses gathered at Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio, 1918.

The theme for this year’s Black History Month, “African Americans in Times of War,” was chosen by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)* to commemorate the end of World War I in 1918.

In keeping with the theme, we offer this photo, which appeared on the cover of our February 2010 issue. The cover story, by Alison Bulman, provided context:

It was 1918 and the armistice ending World War I had just been signed when black nurses gathered at Camp Sherman in Chillicothe, Ohio, to take the photo that appears on our cover. Although the Army Nurse Corps had been established some 17 years earlier, black nurses had only just been permitted to join. Despite their honorable service in the Spanish-American War in 1898 and in World War I, it wasn’t until the desperate need for nurses during the influenza pandemic of 1918 […]

2018-02-12T09:00:39-05:00February 12th, 2018|Nursing, nursing history|1 Comment
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Remembering Nurses Who Served the Wounded and Dying and Those Who Died Themselves

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Normandy American Cemetery, France. Photo by Karen Roush Normandy American Cemetery, France. Photo by Karen Roush

So many of us look forward to Memorial Day weekend as a welcome long weekend and official start of summer. But there are many for whom Memorial Day (the last Monday in May) is a reminder of loved ones who died in military service—and that includes a significant number of military nurses who cared for the wounded in various wars.

We’d like to take this occasion to remind us all of the real meaning of this day and to honor the sacrifices of our colleagues. While it’s hard to find specific numbers of nurses who died in wars, one can extrapolate from what’s known about women who died, since most women who served in combat areas from the start of the 20th century through the Vietnam War were nurses.* […]

2016-11-21T13:02:30-05:00May 22nd, 2015|nursing history|8 Comments
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As the VA Regroups and Recruits, The Words of Nurses Who Served

By Amanda Anderson, a critical care nurse and graduate student in New York City who is currently doing a graduate placement at AJN two days a week. The AJN articles linked to in this post will be free until the end of December.

Vietnam Women's Memorial, courtesy of Kay Schwebke Vietnam Women’s Memorial, courtesy of Kay Schwebke

A scandal earlier this year about suppressed data related to long wait times for appointments tainted the credibility of the Department of Veterans Affairs. On this Veterans Day week, the new secretary of Veterans Affairs has been using incentives and promises of culture change to promote new hiring initiatives for physicians and nurses. The focus as always should be on the removal of the barriers many veterans face in obtaining timely, high quality care. Naturally, a number of these veterans are nurses themselves.

To commemorate those who have bravely cared for our country, and who deserve the best of care in return, we’ve compiled a few quotations from nurse veterans who’ve written for or been quoted in AJN about their experiences in successive conflicts through the decades. Thank you for all your service, and for what you carry daily—as nurses, veterans, and patients.

World War II
“I remember walking through cities leveled by bombs, looking at the hollow eyes and haunted faces of a devastated […]

2016-11-21T13:03:32-05:00November 14th, 2014|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Focusing Nurses on Long- and Short-term Health Needs of Veterans and Their Families

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

I’m always humbled when I speak with veterans or families of veterans. The commitment to duty of the military and the sacrifices their families make—long periods of being single parents; nerve-racking times wondering after the well-being of a spouse or child; missed birthdays, graduations, and milestones—never cease to amaze me.

served2Last October, nurse Linda Schwartz, at the time commissioner of Veterans Affairs for Connecticut, spoke at the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) meeting about the health needs of veterans.

As we pointed out in a blog post about the meeting, she emphasized “the importance of knowing whether a patient has a military service history because many health issues may be service associated. For example, toxic effects from depleted uranium and heavy metals such as those found in ordinance or from exposure to agents like Agent Orange may not manifest themselves for years.” […]

2016-11-21T13:03:34-05:00November 11th, 2014|Nursing|1 Comment
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Memorial Day Weekend: Thanks to the Nurses Who Lost Their Lives While Serving

Vietnam Women’s Memorial, courtesy of Kay Schwebke

AJN wishes all of our U.S. readers (and everyone else too) a safe, restful Memorial Day weekend, whether you are driving to the shore or the hills, staying put and having a barbeque, finishing a dissertation, running a 10K, working all weekend in the emergency department, gardening, or binge-watching episodes of a TV show on Netflix (you know who you are).

But let’s not forget the meaning of this pause to express gratitude to all soldiers and nurses who lost their lives in service to this country, and to their families. I still remember the Memorial Day parade that started downtown in our small New England town and passed our house almost a mile later, the rolling sound of the drums getting nearer for a long time, the old guys in various uniforms passing by, a few nurses in uniform among them.

We’d join the kids circling behind on bicycles as the parade went along the final stretch to the cemetery across from my grandparents’ house, turned slowly in, and marched on until it came to a stop near the center. A hush would fall then in the cemetery with its tall trees. There were no cell phone cameras then. There was nothing to break the quiet. No one was sending or getting texts. No one had earbuds in.

Even as kids we knew it meant something, that silence, and we knew enough to respect it, no matter what we […]

2023-05-26T09:56:27-04:00May 23rd, 2014|career, nursing history|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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