Who Am I? Age 30-40.

To carry his load without resting, not to be bothered by heat or cold and always be content. These three things we can learn from a donkey. Indian Proverb.

 

I turned 30 in July of 1962 and my brothers were all referring to me as their “Old maid sister”. Like I really cared what they thought. I knew exactly where I was headed. Nursing and my career were my first love and I needed a partner that understood my passion for the Navy and Nursing. I married in October of 1962 then returned to Camp Pendleton. Cuban Missile Crisis was in progress, so when we returned having a Honeymoon cut short due to orders to return to base ASAP, I went on Night Duty and my husband worked 15 hours or so. We didn’t see each other for 2 weeks.

In July of 1963 we both received orders to Marine Corps Supply Center, Barstow, CA.

I requested orders to that duty station and as Navy Nurses weren’t knocking one another down to get orders to Barstow the Navy detail officer gladly sent me on my way to Barstow. Promoted to LCdr. 1 October 1963.

I actually loved that duty station. Lots of hard work but lots of fun. One thing the Nurses did the day after the Marine Corps Birthday Ball was give a hang over party for everyone that wanted to attend. Each year the theme was different. One year the theme was put a tiger in your tank. All the nurses were dressed in plain shift style dresses fashioned out of material that resembled the skin of a tiger. I was the seamstress. We held the event in the patio area of the Nurses Quarters. It was set up like a sick bay. Diet kitchen, IV therapy that were IV bottles hanging from IV poles filled with various types of booze, such as Scotch, Gin, etc. IV tubing connected to the bottles with a shot glass to measure your amount of spirits. There was a post with signs and arrows directing you to each place, including the morgue. Crazy bunch we were. When ever I heard someone complain about a duty station it told me they don’t know how to look at the positive side of situations and likely were in need of an attitude adjustment.

In 1966 I had the privilege of being the first female officer to attend a Marine Corps Mess night. That was after I saw the General and stated the rules read “All Officers will attend”.

During the time in Barstow, my husband spent 13 months in Okinawa. Just another military adjustment.

My husband received orders to Camp LeJeune, NC in June of 1967. Again the Nurse Corps was kind enough to transfer me to the same duty station.  We traveled across country by automobile. Each of us had a poodle in the car with us. Gigi was with me and Fifi was with Marshall. We arrived about a week in advance prior to our check in date to look for and purchase a house. I got really lucky. The greatest house I could have ever imagined. When I walked through the front door, I said, I don’t need to see any more. Mrs. McArthur was shocked. She said, you don’t want to see the rest of my house. I said, No, I already know I want to buy it. The home had been featured in House Beautiful and Mrs. McArthur having seen it, she and her husband built this incredible house. Price in 1967. A real expense at $25,000.00. Many great parties were hosted in that fabulous house.

The day I reported to my duty station and was in the process of orientation, 2 helicopters collided over a shopping center in Jacksonville, NC. The small town outside of Camp LeJeune. That led to utter confusion and people scrambling like mad. There were Navy physicians on board that were there, visiting some of their friends. Everyone immediately turned to, ran to the ER and the OR to do what needed to be done.  The quarters on base, near the hospital, that had once been Nurses quarters, had large walk-in refrigerators. They were overflowing with deceased individuals from this terrible crash.

Obviously my so-called orientation was brought to a screeching halt and I was sent immediately to the family hospital to take charge of the Newborn Nursery. Told the orientation would continue at a different time. That never happened. That was fine with me. After so many years in the Navy, I hardly thought I needed a week of orientation. Just give me the basic facts in a couple of hours and I’m good to go and very capable of knowing what is expected of me.

The newborn nursery was a disaster. Having been run by civilian’s for a long period of time, I could find nothing positive about the entire situation, other than the fact that in spite of some less than desirable practices, they had luckily not had any deaths. The premature nursery was so poorly managed that when I did cultures on the isolates, I found they were loaded with pseudomonas. Lacks of knowledge of how to properly clean the equipment. The lack of communication with the formula rep. was another issue. The civilian nurses insisted he was not doing his job, so when he made a visit, I chewed his behind for 5 solid minutes without drawing a breath. He nearly backed out the door and said, “Where the hell did you come from?” As it turned out he had left the Marine Corps having been a MC pilot, because his wife insisted he leave the MC. As I continued my research into the situation it turned out, it was not him that had failed to do his job, but the nurses that had failed to take inventory of the formula needs and then would call him for additional formula at 0200. Once I found out he was a former Marine, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was not at fault. Formula was not the only issue. These civilian nurses would use the last baby shirt then call out the corpsmen on watch to bring baby shirts to them at 0300. Again a lack of not following the 7 P’s. Not one speck of concern for a corpsmen that had worked all day and was standing a night watch to attend to the wishes of those that were not capable of doing their jobs. I also objected to the fact they were putting chuk’s under the heads of the babies to catch the slobbering, so they didn’t have to change the sheet on the crib mattress. So, I instituted a disposable crib mattress cover that was form fitting and gave instructions, under no circumstances were they to put those items under the head of a baby. The backing on the chuk’s was plastic, and I explained if the baby pulled it over their face, it would cut off their oxygen and cause death. One day I was scheduled for a meeting and the people in the nursery did not think I would come on duty. Unfortunately for them the meeting was cancelled and I showed up to find they had defied my order. That was not a smooth day by any means. However they continued to defy me, until a night RN admitted to me she had picked up a baby that had indeed pulled the chuk over his face and when she picked the infant up, it was blue and not breathing. In time she was able to resuscitate the infant and death did not occur. I finally made my point, but only after nearly a loss of an infants life. The Marine baby formula rep. was so unhappy not any longer being in the Marine Corps, I convinced him to return to where he was happy. And being the PIA that I am I told him bluntly, if she doesn’t agree with what makes you happy, “Get rid of her”. And so as I reported all these findings to the Chief  Nurse, she asked my thoughts. I suggested with a delivery rate of 300 babies per month and a large Premature Nursery, it deserved the leadership of a Navy Nurse. In my opinion the civilians had done a pretty terrible job. She followed my suggestion and replaced me with a sharp young Lt.

The Chief Nurse wanted to move me on to another situation. Or so it seemed, as my next task was the Operating Room. As the supervisor of the OR was a friend of mine I was not effective in dealing with her attitude and her lack of leadership in that department. I expressed these concerns to the Chief Nurse and she understood and decided to move me on.

Oh my. The Emergency room. A department that had always been run only by physicians and corpsmen. I was about as popular as the Black Plague when I entered those sacred doors and announced  “Hey guys, this is my new assignment”. I am very well aware that you are less than pleased with this turn of events, but as a team, I think we can make it work. What they thought, I have no idea. I do know without a doubt they had only one goal. That was to get rid of me. They had already managed that prior to my assignment.

These hard core Navy Corpsmen that had returned from Vietnam, had no use for those such as Navy Nurses. The Navy Nurse that preceded me was admitted to the hospital.

Not a physical illness. They managed to put him (a male Navy Nurse) in the hospital in the psychiatric department. Nice job I had facing me.

Now as I have managed to get into page 3 of this story and have not even touched on all the interesting things at Camp LeJeune, I have decided perhaps I should divide Chapter IV into 2 parts. Will continue with the second part in a few days.

The difficulties in life are intended to make us better not bitter.       Anonymous.