Susan Seglie is an attractive fifty-five year old woman and one of the younger members of the Betty Lou Vilmer Post. Mrs. Seglie is a bright and compassionate woman who served her country as a nurse in the Army Nurse Corps…

Susan Seglie 12/5/05

[I was born on]* January 18, 1951 in Washington, Iowa. [My parents’ names were] Catherine and Leroy Minert. [My earliest memory is] playing with brothers and sisters when I was real small. [I attended] Brighton Grade School in Brighton, Iowa, Washington High School, and Marycrest College. I attended Black Hawk College for some special training as a nurse, and Monterey Peninsula Junior College for some language courses, and some bookkeeping courses, accounting courses, and then the University of Kansas for a Master’s degree and a post-Master’s certificate from PSU.

I joined the military [when] I was twenty-two because I wanted some different experiences than working in a small hospital in Iowa. My parents thought it was an awful decision. They thought it was terrible that I would join the military because only wild girls joined the military; because when I joined the military, my parents did not know a lot of females that had been in the military-- although, my dad’s aunt had been an Army nurse and retired from being in the Army Nurse Corps. I didn’t think a lot about it [the rumor about “loose women”], if you want to know the truth (laughter)!* I knew, by that time, several girls that were in the military, and my parents really didn’t know any girls that were in the military except my dad’s aunt. Not that she was a “loose woman” by any means; but they didn’t know any females that were in the military. It didn’t bother me, I knew too many women that definitely did not fit that description.

[My] nursing [training] was at Marycrest College, and that was pretty much a typical nurses education from a baccalaureate program. It entailed four years of classes, and clinicals, and working in the hospital, and a great deal of time. As far as my military training, I spent about two months at Ft. San Houston in Texas. I learned to read maps, carry guns, march—which was fun. Learning the rank for officers and for the enlisted and officer and enlisted rank for the different services—Navy, Air Force, that kind of thing. I went into the military as a First Lieutenant; and after I was in the military for about two years, I was a Captain. When I left, they made me a Major.

[I was in the military for] not quite four years. My job [in the military] was to work as a nurse in an Army hospital. I worked in the Emergency Room and ran the ER during the evenings and nights. Other women were corpsmen that worked in the hospital; some of the other women that I met were enlisted. They worked in the Engineering Corps or in the Infantry doing somewhat secretarial; but a lot of administrative positions, not so much carrying guns and so forth. They all carried guns. You had to be proficient in carrying guns, which the nurses did too. We had to go out and shoot and things like that. I was stationed initially at Ft. San Houston in San Antonio, Texas for my officer, basic training. Then I went to Monterey, California and was there for two and a half years; [and] then I went to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma for about one and a half years, and then I left active duty. [I traveled] pretty much in the continent of the United States. I didn’t have any overseas duty. [I traveled in] Colorado, the Northwest. I did a lot of traveling while I was in Texas, and along the coast and into Mexico.

In Monterey, California I worked in the ER. I worked the night shift. So I would go to work at eleven o’clock at night, and get off around eight o’clock in the morning. During that time, we would see anybody with any type of an illness. If they had an emergency, often times I would go with the ambulance to wherever to pick up the person and bring them back to the ER. I’d evaluate them, and then call the doctor; and we would treat them, and decide what was going to happen at that point. That was a normal day. I was on a couple of extra details and sometimes those would take place after my shift hour was over. So I might go do that. Other than that, if it [wasn’t] a day that I had another meeting or anything, then I would go to my apartment; and maybe sleep for a few hours. Go sailing, and go back to sleep for a few hours, get back up, and go to work. Most days I ran two to four miles a day. I had a dog, and I would either ride my bike or run with my dog.

A typical day in Oklahoma was—because I was a head nurse there, it was a very large unit—usually started at six, and I ended at four. If one of my nurses was ill, or they weren’t there, then I filled in for them. It was my job to find replacements, and it was my duty to fill time slots for nurses who went on vacation, or had a family issue. Also, at Ft. Sill I did a lot of training; I had a lot of young nurses that I trained, like how to run an IV, and things like that. I had a lot of corpsmen, several nurses aides, a nursing tech, where I would teach them certain things. I set up two or three training camps while I was there. I took nurses, techs, and aides, and taught them how to function in a medical setting.

I really didn’t [encounter any hardships]. I was on a couple of special assignments, outside of the nursing requirements, that I had to be available and always give a place where I could be reached. They had to know how to get a hold of me. I always had to let them know. Not everybody was on these special assignments; so you always had to let your supervisors know where you were. If you were taking vacation, you had to leave a number. If there was a national emergency, you would be called back and deployed overseas. So, there were things like that.

Because I was an officer, they [the military] didn’t provide me with anything. They may have provided the white uniform; in fact, I think…yes, they did provide the white uniforms. My blues, my greens, and my other uniforms I had to purchase. We got a clothing allowance, and the uniforms never fit that allowance (laughs); but it did help defray some of the costs. I kind of enjoyed the dress code because I didn’t have to think about what I was going to wear the next day. We had a white uniform that we wore in the hospital. If I had a meeting, then I wore my greens, sometimes called Class A’s. They were a green suit. They didn’t allow pants at the time so it was a skirt and a blouse, and a jacket with a little tie; and then you had all your rank and insignias splotched all over. That’s what we wore to most meetings. If it was a formal occasion, then I had dress blues that I would wear. It was a navy blue skirt and a navy blue jacket. Then if we were out in the field, when I was doing my officer, basic training—learning to read maps and stuff—a lot of times we wore our camouflage stuff. It wasn’t camouflage stuff, it was all green, and they’ve changed a lot since then. They’ve gone to camouflage green to desert camouflage; but mine were all green, a green blouse and green pants, and the women’s pants buttoned on the side. There were no zippers, just buttons and lots of pockets. [My white uniform] was just a short-sleeved white uniform. It was tailored, there was a belt around the waist, and it had a collar so you could put you rank and your insignias on the collar. And at that time, nurses wore hats. So, we had an Army nurse’s cap that we wore. We [also] had white stockings and white shoes. No, [I was not required to wear my uniform off duty].

I think in some ways [my treatment varied according to location]. My first duty assignment was California, and so that was pretty open and liberal. When I moved to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, that was much more conservative—the surrounding area, not so much the base itself. The base itself had some issues. At Ft. Sill, I was a head nurse there, and it was a very large medical unit. It had an ICU; it was about a sixty-bed floor. I would deal with anything from seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year old kids. I would have them [on] one floor, and I would have the older people on another floor. We did have a very large retirement population. So we had a lot of elderly, older, patients as well. We had black nurses and black nurse aides. I did not realize it at first, but there was a lot of prejudice in Oklahoma to the blacks. I encountered that when I was trying to give an award to a black nurse aide, who was just wonderful—just wonderful—and it was a very, very big ordeal. Lots [of black women in my unit were treated like this]. That was probably the first occurrence that I had seen a lot of prejudice toward other people that were doing a good job; but were not getting recognized. It was very surprising. There were times, a lot of times, there was segregation in Oklahoma. My husband and I loved to barbeque; and there was a wonderful barbeque place in the black area, and I think we were the only two white folks that walked into that restaurant. The first time we went, we went with a very dear black friend of ours; and of course, I didn’t think anything of it, but they were teasing us about it when we went in.

When I was in Ft. Sill, we lived in quarters and we were not segregated [from the men]. The room next to us may have had men in it. In fact, I had a room that I shared a kitchen with a male. We each had our own bathrooms, but we shared a kitchen. Because I was a nurse, they [the men] treated me really well [in the military]. And also, because I was an officer, they treated me really well. The military treat the people better in the medical corps and nurse corps. The medical corps and the nurse corps take care of those who are sick, those that are hurt; and so they would protect us, and they would make sure we were treated very well. The only [anti-women feelings] I remember did not deal with me directly, but more concerned with women carrying guns and being in the combat zone. That was always a debate. That was the biggest male-female thing you would see.

Military training, learning the rules, going by the rules and regulations and standards. Some people disliked it, but I have to admit, it didn’t bother me. The rules were very plain, so you knew what they were, and you just had to abide by them. In civilian life there are just as many rules and regulations that govern our day-to-day life, they just aren’t written down all the time. You, as a student, have certain rules and regulations that you have to follow—what you can and can’t do. Your parents give you certain rules, and you think you have all the rules down; and then you do something, and your parents go, “Well, you didn’t understand that rule very well.” So, it’s similar to being in the military; although, everything is pretty much written out. [The punishment for breaching a rule] depended on what the rule was. It could be anything from just correcting the behavior, to docking the pay, or being put into the military jail. It would depend on what the situation was. I didn’t know a lot of people that got put into jail.

[My friends left the military because they] didn’t like the rules and regulations that the military require, and the discipline. There was a saying that when you were in the military, they owned your time 24/7. And they do. If something happens, you’ll be called up; and there were times that things would happen, we would have drills and so forth. We would go in at really strange hours, when you were supposed to be off. So a lot of people didn’t like that. They also didn’t like where to be told to live, and they didn’t like the moving. I was in Monterey for two years, and then I moved to Oklahoma for about a year and a half. I was at Ft. Sam Houston for a few months during training and stuff. People didn’t like the moving. They wanted to stay in one place. Being a nurse, there were a lot of female nurses, many of them got married and wanted to go back home. [The standards for leaving were] discipline, for example, committing a crime; you could be dishonorably discharged. If you requested for leave, then you could be given an honorable discharge, if you had good reports.

I served at the end of the Vietnam War. It was winding down when I went [into] active duty. The effect it had on me was that I dealt with a lot of servicemen coming back from either Korea or from Vietnam that had been injured. I dealt with the physical injuries. Some of the emotional injuries that the servicemen and women were dealing with, that was a big medical issue and it still is today.

[The most memorable moments I had in the military were] the friendships. Many, many, many of my friends today are scattered across the country. My best friend lives in Omaha. She was actually in my officer training course and was in charge of teaching a group of us how to march—and she wasn’t very good at it (laughs). We made sure she wasn’t very good at it because we did do what she told us to do. We would do exactly what she told us to do, even though we knew she was giving us the wrong instructions, the wrong commands. She, for instance, gave us a command to turn right and then turn left. Well, there were bleachers and we just marched right up and over the bleachers. That’s not exactly what she meant for us to do (laughs). That’s always been a funny one for me.

[The best part of being in the military] personally, that’s where I met my husband. Professionally, it [was] probably the only time I worked with young nurses and young doctors. They were very innovative and made work a lot of fun. We treated a lot of younger adults that were between twenty and fifty. That brought on a lot of different diseases and situations than when you are dealing with people from cradle to grave. You deal with a lot of other issues in health care. That was the difference.

The worst part [in the military] was probably once I married another person in the military it was very hard for them [the military] to move husband and wife to the same post. That’s really why I left active duty. [I was married on] November 9, 1976 in Monterey, California. [I have] three [children; their names are] Sara, John, and Ana Maria. [If moving] had not been an issue, I probably would have stayed in until my husband got out.

The experience that I gained, as a nurse, was extremely valuable. I saw lots of things and got to do an awful lot of things. I utilized my education much more rapidly than if I had been a civilian nurse. And because we deal with military, there is a cross-section of the population so you don’t just see people come in from the Midwest with certain types of illnesses that we experience and see from the Midwest. You see people from across the country and across the world. So, that was just very, very valuable. Because you progress up at a certain point in the military, then you are given more and more responsibility. That was invaluable for me when I got out. There were times, when I first left the military, that I applied for civilian jobs. A couple of them I was not hired for because I had more experience than the person who was hiring me; and they were much older than I was, and they had been in that position and felt a big threat because I already had more experience than they had. Financially, they [the military] paid better than any civilian hospital did. The travel, meeting different people, making friendships from around the country, it was all very important. Certainly, [the military helped me in later life] for managing people, and situations, and it made me very flexible. Part of that was my nurses training and working in the ER where I never knew who was coming in the door. [The service] broadened my ideas of the world, broadened my friendships, and my experiences as a nurse. Besides funny little things like differences in foods, and living in a different part of the country, everything was totally different than what I had grown up with.

I got a job after I left the military, but it was not a job in nursing. I took a break from nursing, and I taught French cooking. It was a lot of fun!

I qualified for GI Benefits, for mortgage benefits, I still qualify to get Veteran’s benefits. When I was [on] active duty I started getting insurance out of a company that dealt with the military, and gave better rates to the military; and I still carry that insurance today.

[The Betty Lou Vilmer Post] was named after a citizen of this area that was in the military, who started that post. They have a number of members who were actually nurses during the Korean War. It [the Betty Lou Vilmer post] was not always a member of that [the Army Nurse Corps], it was a member of the WACs, or the Women Army Corps, which was separate from the Army Nurses Corps. By the time I came around, it was a part of the Army Nurses Corps. You have to be a veteran, you have to have been on active duty [to get into the Betty Lou Vilmer Post].

* Text with [] indicates words not spoken by Susan Seglie

This oral history was researched and prepared by Dana Beckenhauer in December of 2005.