7/8/2011:
Nurses, especially women, serving during times of war has a long tradition in the United States. It stretches back to the Revolutionary War, when sometime after the establishment of the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates told George Washington that “the sick suffered much for want of good female nurses.” Washington then asked Congress for “a matron to supervise the nurses, bedding, etc.,” and for nurses “to attend the sick and obey the matron’s orders.”
Women nurses continued to help through battles, but it wasn’t until 1901 that Congress passed the Army Reorganization Act, making the Nurse Corps a permanent part of the Medical Department. Forty-six years later, in 1947, Congress established the Regular Army Nurse Corps in the U.S. Army Medical Department and established the Army Nurse Corps section of the Officer Reserve Corps, and allowed them in the Army National Guard and the Air Guard.
By World War II, women served in all sorts of conditions alongside men, and were exposed to more dangers than before. One was Mollie Peterson. She was born in Cogswell, Sargent County, and lived there until she was approximately five. Her family moved away to Arkansas on account of her father’s bad health, and never returned. She took up nursing, and joined the war effort, serving in the Philippines.
On this date in 1942, Mollie Peterson’s name became known across the state as newspapers reported that the North Dakota native was among fifteen nurses to receive decoration for bravery under fire – the first American women to receive such honors during World War II, and the first to receive the new decoration ordered by President Roosevelt for outstanding service in defense of the Philippines.
The girls received their awards, royal blue ribbons set in a wreath of gold laurel leaves, but were not actually pinned, because, newspapers reported, they had “left their war-torn uniforms in the battle area,” and, “the army decrees – no uniforms, no pinning ceremony.”
Meanwhile, The Cogswell Enterprise reported that although most of her life was spent away from North Dakota, “Her birth certificate would show Cogswell as her place of birth and she evidently still claims Cogswell as her home.”
Dakota Datebook written by Sarah Walker
Sources:
http://www.army.mil/women/nurses.html
Cogswell Enterprise, July 16, 1942
Wednesday Evening, July 8, 1942, Fargo Forum
Wednesday Evening, July 8, 1942, Grand Forks Herald