A Century of Care
Navy Nurse Corps celebrates 100th anniversary
Monday June 30, 2008
Print This- Select Text Size:
Comments
Rear Adm. Christine Bruzek-Kohler, director of the Navy Nurse Corps, addresses the crowd May 2 at a public wreath-laying ceremony in Washington to honor the 100th anniversary of the corps.
(Photo courtesy of Bureau of Navy Medicine)
advertisement
The Navy Nurse Corps Association, a 2,500-member organization dedicated to preserving the Corps' history, held a reunion in Washington this spring to celebrate the centennial anniversary. Active, reserve, former, and retired Navy nurses joined in the festivities from April 30 to May 3, which included tours of Washington landmarks, a memorial service at the Women's Memorial at Arlington Cemetery, and a gala at the Marriott Crystal Gateway attended by more than 1,000 people.
Highlights included 14 Navy Nurse Corps admirals cutting a white hospital ship-shaped birthday cake, a uniform parade with models dressed in uniforms Navy nurses have worn throughout the past century, and a tour of the Old Naval Hospital, built in 1864 and now undergoing restoration.
"It was very exciting to do," says reunion chairperson Veronica Rubin, RN, a retired Navy Nurse Corps commander who works at the Washington DC VA Medical Center. "We started planning it four years ago, and I am happy it turned out so well."
Navy nurses across the country also celebrated the historic occasion. At the Naval Hospital Oak Harbor, located in Oak Harbor, Wash., nurses savored a white, blue, and gold-iced sheet cake.
A team of U.S. Navy nurses deployed aboard the USS Boxer in May planned to celebrate the anniversary by providing medical care to people in Guatemala as part of the humanitarian civic assistance mission Continuing Promise 2008.
Many of the nurses, including Ensign Rebecca Retzlaff, said the opportunity to help others in the field was a perfect way to commemorate the Corps' founding because it embodies what Navy nurses do – go where they are needed whenever that need presents itself.
Congress established a female Nurse Corps within the Navy on May 13, 1908. By October of that year, 20 nurses with at least two years of formal training and relevant clinical experience were preparing for their initial assignments at Naval hospitals in Washington; Portsmouth, Va.; Annapolis, Md.; and Brooklyn, N.Y. These nurses, known as the "Sacred Twenty," did not hold a military rank.
In the years leading up to World War I, about 140 additional nurses had joined, and by 1913 they were serving aboard the USS Mayflower, USS Dolphin and in Navy hospitals in the Philippines, Japan, Guam, Samoa, Cuba, and the Virgin Islands.
More than 1,550 nurses were serving at Naval facilities, including wartime hospitals in England and France, at the end of WWI. The numbers dwindled to about 500 after the war. When the country began preparing for World War II, the number of Navy nurses reached more than 800. Navy nurses earned military rank, received some benefits, and gained recognition as commissioned officers in WWII. They gained permanent status with the Army-Navy Nurse Act of 1947.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that servicemen and servicewomen should receive the same benefits. Today, the approximately 2,774 active duty and 1,249 reserve Navy nurses deploy wherever needed. Some serve in war zones, risking their lives to tend to injured troops.
According to the Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation, more than 150,000 female nurses have served in the Corps since it was founded.
Debra Anscombe Wood, RN, is a freelance writer.
To comment, e-mail editorDC@ nursingspectrum.com.
Reader Comments
Login