With sadness, Joy told about the many ‘boys’ they lost in Roetgen, Germany. “The fighting continued so long that cold day, but we couldn’t get to them in time as they lay out in the field. We lost them to pneumonia or shock. We were trained to save lives; we couldn’t save many that day. We shed a lot of tears.”
Joy described the only platoon member killed during the war. “He was a young, rosy cheeked boy who carried the wounded on the stretcher. Pvt. Trester was a litter-bearer and when he heard a fellow soldier call for help, he took off toward the voice. Without regard for his own safety, he ran through an open field, stepping on a mine, which exploded before he could get to the wounded. We were supposed to stay within the protected area that had already been scanned for mines.”
The platoon was not used to losing one of their own. These nurses, associated with the Red Cross, were not allowed to carry weapons. They were to wear their Red Cross badge on their sleeve. They felt the ‘rules of war’ enacted by treaties such as the Geneva Convention, would protect them. In this case it did not.
Source: The Nurse Who Went to War by Susan Harrison Wolffis, Muskegon Chronicle, March 31, 2002
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Source: Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation Inc.