A Contemporary History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps

The idea of women warriors is not new. Women have long served in the U.S. armed forces as nurses. But, as Mary Sarnecky points out in the second volume of her work on the history of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps (ANC), not all nurses were women. As her new book shows, the more recent history of the ANC can often confound gendered expectations. Two of the three nurses killed in the November 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, for example, were men. In A Contemporary History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, Sarnecky begins her story at one of the lowest points in military history: the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War. The protracted and controversial war alienated the military from society and, in her words, left a “hollow force” experiencing a massive reorganization of command structures, personnel, and health services (3). In addition, the force of the women's movement rippled through the military, challenging established doctrines that only affected service women. Redacted policies included those that required only women to relinquish custody of their children and to prove that they provided more than half their families economic support to allow housing and other privileges for their spouses and children. Change, as might be expected of a tradition-oriented institution, came slowly. But, in each instance, women nurses in the ANC led the way in proving that this push for equity would not destroy the Army's commitment to its overarching need to constantly maintain mission readiness.

Military history · Military service · Political science · Sociology · Vietnam War · Gender, Security, and Conflict · History · Law · Medicine · Nursing · Nursing Education, Practice, and Leadership · Psychology · Torture, Ethics, and Law

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