Lady Be Good! suddenly streamed down from a band from up above our gangplank’s single line of olive drab female drudges—the 110 nurses and 5 Red Cross workers assigned to the 95th
“Is this trip necessary?” I
wondered for the first time on the adventure (but not the last). Never, though, did I question my decision to
join the war effort except for times of fatigue or extreme physical
discomfort. My Red Cross experience was
the most fulfilling work experience of my life.
Volunteering for the Red Cross
overseas I had left a well-paying, interesting job in Washington , DC ,
having advanced rapidly with a public administration MA beyond my BA in
political science. I was working in FPHA
which was responsible for providing nationwide emergency housing for wartime
workers.
Still in my early 20s I had loved Washington life.
Yet as my peers began signing up for the military I felt downright
selfish and unpatriotic; I wanted to be in the middle of the action, not in
some indirect effort like housing! I was
accepted as an Ensign in the Navy but learned I’d just work across the Potomac instead of in downtown DC, and for less than
current pay. Except for nurses and for a
few women who delivered airplanes to troops, I had learned, only the Red Cross
volunteers were allowed in overseas jobs.
At 24 I longed to see the world.
“Who cares about pay or benefits?”
Upon acceptance as a Red Cross
worker I had to finish the special training set up at American University
by the Red Cross. There were three
categories of Recreation Workers: setting up programs and working with hospital
patients, setting up clubs and entertainment for military on leave, and going
in “doughnut wagons” close to the actual fighting to provide a moment of “home”
for the soldiers. I chose hospital.
After training in Washington
I was sent to an Army Hospital
at Hempstead on Long Island for a brief
on-the-job period. And THEN I lolled
around for two or three weeks back in Washington
in a hotel before my assignment came through.
Maybe that inactivity accounted for my distress walking up that
gangplank into the second largest cruise ship afloat at the time to cross the
Atlantic alone, without convoy escort.
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