Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Helen-Louise Phelps Boling was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
It's April 27th, 2005. This is an interview for the Veterans History Project. I'm talking to Mrs. Helen-Louise Boling Lee Phelps, [address and phone number redacted]. Mrs. Boling was in the U.S. Army from 6-81 to 2-97. Mrs. Boling, before we begin with your Army career, let's talk about where were you born, where you went to school and your pre-service life a bit.
Okay. I was born in New Britain, Connecticut. My early life was spent in New England.
And where did you go to school?
To college. I married while I was in nursing school in Boston, Massachusetts, left nursing school. I married someone who was in the Army, so we did some traveling and I never got back to school for about ten years. When I was able I went to a four year college, School of Nursing at the University of Washington, in Seattle.
I see. And let's talk about how you got into the service yourself. You were married to a serviceman?
Yes, I was married to a career Army officer and as sometimes happens we were having a little bit of trouble in our marriage and things didn't work out as well as one might have hoped and at that time my children were in high school. I was looking, I had been a nurse for several years at that time and I was looking for something interesting to do. I had joined the Reserves three years earlier and enjoyed that and they were asking for pediatric, for children's nurses to come on active duty and so thinking that I would only stay in for two or three years I went on active duty. It turned out to be a good choice. I was on active duty for 13 years.
And when you went on active duty then did you have to go to a basic training unit?
Yes. I know that some of the enlisted folks don't think very much of Army officer basic or particularly of medical corps basics, but yes, it's a six week program and it involves obviously some classroom work but we spent two weeks in the field. We did the 10 mile hikes with the rucksacks. I qualified with an 9 millimeter and with a M16 rifle. Did the mop gear, the protective gear for chemical, biological and radiological warfare, all of the PT and all of that sort of thing.
So did you do that, was that a co-ed thing or were you separate from the men?
It was co-ed. Our sleeping facilities while we were in the classroom section were of course separate but when we were in the field, those two weeks that we were in the field we were sleeping in GP median tents which sleep about 20 people and those were co-ed.
And did you have to keep up wtih the men in the same physical training?
Absolutely, absolutely, the training was the same. I will say the standards for how many pushups you do, how fast you have to run, those vary by both age and sex, but I had to meet standards and since I went in a little bit older, I think the standards were a little bit easier but definitely it was challenge.
You say you went in a little bit older, how old were you?
I was 38.
You were 38 --
-- when I went on active duty.
So, you were in basic training with some teenagers.
Well, not teenagers, because this was --
Oh, these were officers?
And had already completed their professional education.
I see?
So, I was in basic training with physicians, nurses, dieticians, maybe some other but all medical corps people who all completed four years of college.
I see, so everybody was 25 or thereabouts?
Thereabouts.
I see, when you were in basic training did you notice discrimination against women in service?
No, but, I will say that this was the medical corps, so there are lots of women and there are women who have earned their right to being, to respect. Only then about, I want to say no more than, let me say it that way, no more than ten years did that, physicians could be women. Prior to around 1975 only male physicians could be commissioned, so in that sense there was discrimination. There was also at that time reverse discrimination. It was only until after Vietnam that male nurses could be commissioned in the Army Nurse Corps. And now if you don't mind a little plug here, male nurses make up over 25 percent of the Army Nurse Corps. Of the total profession of nurses, they make up about four percent.
I read an interesting statistic the other day that women now make up 15 percent of our armed services
15 percent?
15 percent.
That's probably true. I think we'll see that number increase, however there are, I think that there are always going be some branches where there are significantly fewer women. There aren't that many woman who want to be jet mechanics or want to be infantry officers. There are some but not as many.
Yes, they are gernally in the support services?
Generally in the support services, yes.
So, you went to basic training?
Uh-huh.
And you took that basic where?
At Fort Sam Houston, Texas in San Antonio.
Had you ever been through anything that rigorous before?
Well, I had been in the Reserves, so I had done, I had to maintain my, pass my PT test and all of that. The basic training for the Reserves is a correspondence course, but prior to that I think I had lived a fairly active life but in terms of a structured program, no.
Where did you go then from Fort Sam Houston?
From Fort Sam Houston I went to Fort Ord, Texas where I was the assistant head nurse in the newborn nursery, and I was there for two years, thinking that I was only going to stay in the Army for three years. The Army always wants to get its ounce of blood and they sent me to Korea for a year long tour.
I see.
Which tunred out to be a very good experience.
Now, going back just a little bit, what was your rank when you entered the active military service?
Captain.
You were already a captain?
I went into the Reserves as a first lieutenant, which doesn't, which speaks both to my experience and to the degree I had and while I was still in the Reserves I was promoted to captain and I went on active duty as a captain and captain in almost all of the branches in peacetime is a rank that you tend to sit in for a while and I did.
Before you get to the field grade.
Before you get the field grade, yes.
So, going back to the question of respect, whether you were a man or a woman the uniform or the --
Yes.
-- the rank demands respect.
The rank demands respect. Of course you can lose that respect if you don't do a good job, if you don't treat people --
As a leader.
-- as a leader of people, but I personally never felt that I was disrespected because I was a woman and I have worked with not only medical people but I've worked with infantry, other family members when I've been caring for their children or caring for them when I was oversees, and I know this is not many universal experience, but that's been my experience.
So, you went to Fort Ord, California and then you were sent on TDY you said which is temporary duty.
Well, it was a full year. So, it was considered a permanent change in station.
So, you went to Seoul, Korea.
Seoul, Korea, yes.
Now, the fighting is over in Korea?
Right, this was in '86.
But you were attached to an Army unit in Seoul?
Yes, I was at the 121st Army Hospital there, the 121st Army Hospital.
And what were your duties there?
Again, I was in the newborn nursery.
I see.
So, that was very interesting, because many, officially dependents do not go, did not at that time go to Korea. Many of the family units were men who had married Korean women and we had their children to take care of. So, I got to know some of the Korean women, several of our nurses were Korean, so it was quite interesting. I did get to go many of the, I went up to the Demiliterized Zone, up to Panmunjom, the area where of the border between North Korea and South Korea where every military person at that time was expected to go up there to see what we were defending, and that was quite interesting.
While you were there, did you feel a sense of impending doom. Was it expected at any time there was going to be an outbreak?
Well, at the time that I was there, things were relatively peaceful. North Korea, of course, for the entire time since the armistice has made threatening noises but they were making fewer threatening noises at that time than they have at some periods. There were a few incursions across the border, not very many. So, it was a good time I think to be there. Things changed later as terriorist activity throughout the world increased. As that happened, I think that North Korea thought perhaps that they would be able to capitalize on that and the tensions in Korea rose.
When you're at the line with say at the fence, do you see what's happening in the north? Can you see anything?
Not really. You can see, let's see I was there in '84. In maybe '78 or '79 there was an incident where an American soldier and some South Korean soldiers were killed within view of Panmunjom and that story is always told. There are both North Korean and South Korean guards there and you're cautioned not to try to talk to the North Koreans because you're not supposed to and certainly as you're in the treaty building there, where the treaty was signed, there's certainly a sense of tension there. If you were ever in Berlin, there was certainly a sense of tension there and it was the same kind of thing.
Yes, and at any moment --
Something could happen.
The communists might decide it was time to do something.
Right.
If only to show strength?
I think it's exactly the way it felt.
And today of course it's much worse with the nuclear reactor threats that they're making.
And for whatever we think of China at the time that I was there, there was a real sense that China did not want North Korea to make any foolish gestures and that they pretty well kept North Korean under control. I think today North Korea is making it fairly clear that they are not necessarily going to listen to China anymore.
They seem to be a petulant child seeking attention.
Yeah. My friends who are in Korea now say that it is much tougher. In the first place the South Koreans are not as welcoming towards Americans, they would sort of like us to go home, the young ones would like us to go home. The ones that don't themselves remember the war but also in the aftermath of 9-11 and of North Korea's favor rattling, there are curfews and then the places that you can travel are more limited. So, it's different.
When you were there did you notice that the South Koreans were anxious to have you leave, the Americans?
I think that movement was really just getting, just beginning. There were some who would say we are grown up now, we can be independent, we have a strong military, and of course there's always been a desire to reunify with North Korea, whether that's ever going to happen, who knows but and in the 20 years since I came back that movement to ask the Americans to leave has strengthened and there's much more.
You have probably kept yourself abreast of the news as it comes out about that area?
Yes, because I liked it so much. I enjoyed being there.
I see. Now, was one year a standard tour of duty?
Yes.
And you replaced someone?
I did.
And then someone replaced you?
Uh-huh.
When you left Korea, where did you go?
I came back to Fort Sam Houston for the Officers Advanced Course, which is another, it's sort of preparatory to further responsiblities, and that's a six month course and again with a fairly significant in the field component we're learning more about nuclear, biological chemical warfare, learning more about the weapons we might use, learning about care of enemy prisoners of war in terms of how do you keep them secure and make sure that they --
Somewhere along here your three years was up?
Yes, and somewhere along there I decided not to get out.
And what changed your mind?
Well, I was finding that I was really enjoying the kind of work that I was doing, both, I've always been a children's nurse, so I was enjoying that part of it but I was also enjoying working with the military families, enjoyed the travel, enjoyed going to Korea, enjoyed working in different places in the United States, so and there wasn't anything in the civiian world that was just crying out to me to come, so I just stayed.
Looking at your certificate of discharge, I thought I noted that you had accrued 60 days of leave?
Oh, yes, frequently.
Does that mean you did not go on, for example in Korea you did not go on leave or furlough?
No, I went, well, when you work in a hospital, you have to work weekends. It's often possible to stack up your days off, so that you can get four or five days off in a row without actually taking leave, so you can do like a four day pass or a five day pass.
Yes. And were you able to travel?
And I traveled within Korea, and then I did, I don't know what they call it, if they even had such a thing during World War 2, but during Vietnam they started an R and R process; rest and recreation. I did my R and R. I went to, from Korea to Hawaii at my mid-point and spent a week in Hawaii, my son came.
That was not charged against your leave?
That was charged against my leave. So, what I'm saying is I did use my leave, it's just that when I knew I was going to get out, I started saving up my leave so that when I did get out not only is that sort of like two months of, because you keep getting paid, that I would have for job hunting, but that meant my military medical benefits continued untl I had a job lined up and new benefits.
And somewhere along the line we have to get you from captain to major also?
Yes, I was promoted to major about two months after we came home from Desert Storm. So that would have been --
So, I've gotton ahead of you here?
Yeah, that would have been in the spring of --
Now, we have you back at Fort Knox in Kentucky?
No, I haven't gotton in Fort Knox yet.
You left Korea to go to --
I left Korea and went back to Fort Sam Houston.
Oh, I see okay, all right?
And I went from Fort Sam Houston, I must have gone, I guess I went from Fort Sam to Kentucky although that doesn't seem right. I mean it seems like there's not been enough years. Sorry about that. Sometimes without a piece of paper in front of me, I don't remember the exact sequence here. I did the Officers Advanced Course at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in San Antonio, which is a six month course and then I stayed at Fort Sam Houston at Brook Army Medical Center.
What was the advanced course for?
It's a, I guess you would call it a mid-level management course, where you learn, again you get updated on any of the military skills that you need, but you also get how to be a leader, how to, oh, things like running meetings and writing efficiency reports and all of those things.
Business training?
Business training, right.
While you were on these assignments did you have people working under you?
I did, both enlisted and lower ranked officers.
And they were in the capacity of nurses or orderlies or --
Right, right.
So, you were in charge of both men and woman?
Yes.
During that time?
Yes.
And but now you're a captain and going back to this discrimination, or respect.
Yes.
Did you ever have any problem directing men of lower rank?
No, no. For one thing we always had strong NCO backup.
Non-commissioned officers?
Non-comissioned officers, and I have worked with some fine NCOs in my career, and if there had been ever anyone who had the slightest sense that they weren't going to take orders from a woman, the NCOs would have put a quick end to that. That would not have flown.
I see.
Now, I'm sure that in some of the combat arms perhaps things are a little bit different but for the medical branches...
Well, is it possible that your work was such that rank was not nearly as important as it might be in let's say, in a combat unit?
I think rank was perhaps viewed a little bit differently. You know, I was not very often going to be in a situation that I would have to send somebody into harm's way. I wasn't usually the person who would be saying no you can't go on leave. The medical, the whole medical area that has a double set of rank. There's the administrative people who are the ones who would say no, you can't go on leave, yes, you can go on leave and then there are the actual medical care provider people the physicians, the nurses.
Who are not as conscious --
Not at conscious of rank and not needing to have it. Certainly we had authority.
But you might outrank a doctor?
Yes, and that's one of the things that I won't say got me in trouble when I got back into the civilian world but certainly if I'm working with another physician and if I'm working with a physician and I think that perhaps he needs to, he or she needs to rethink some medical decision they have made, I don't hesitate to mention that because when I was in the Army I knew that if there were an issue come up that I won't be backed up.
I don't know how to explain it. Just knowing that you've got equal or superior rank on your shoulders, it doesn't necessary mean you know any more, but it does give you a certain confidence that you can speak freely. Respectfully, politely but freely.
Well, you spent six months then --
Learning how to be a leader.
Learning to be a leader of men and women. And then what happened?
Then I stayed at Brooke Army Medical Center which is one of the Army's big medical centers. I worked in a neonatal intensive care unit. I was also what they call Procus (ph) which means that I had a secondary assignment to a combat hospital and this becomes important because when we got into Desert Storm, the combat hospital requested that their Procus people leave their non-combat hospitals and join them and that's when we went to Desert Storm.
So I had my official Army assignment was Brooke Army Hospital and that would in many ways would be like working in a civilian hospital. We took care of dependents, we took care of active duty, we took care of retirees but when we went into, when the country went into a combat situation, the combat hospitals could request that their people who were serving in these large medical centers be reassigned to the combat hospital and then we went overseas.
And so you went there?
To Operation Desert Storm. So I went from Brooke Army Hospital to Riyadh, Saudia Arabia and we moved from Riyadh. This is a combat support hospital so it's a mobile unit. We moved from Riyadh out into the desert and there we set up a hospital more as okay, here's all this equipment that we've used in training but we've never actually set it up and cared for patients, so we set it up and we served actually for about three weeks as a hospital that provided care to injured Americans. The first, oh, probably the first two or three months of Operation Desert Storm, we had more people who were either ill or were injured in accidents than we did casualties. As you perhaps remember the combat casualties in Operation Desert Storm. We were very lucky. There were very few.
Due to America's superior technology?
To technology, to the overwhelming force we took over there. To the fact that many of Saddam Hussein's soldiers were very poorly trained and not terribly well equipped. He had some excellent units but many were not.
Most were not well --
Not well equipped, not well trained.
Nor motivated.
Nor motivated, for sure.
So, now from the standpoint of the front if there could be something called a front there, where were you?
We, I was with the 41st Combat Support Hospital which is assigned to the 24th Infantry Division so we supported the 24th. So where the 24th went, we went which meant that we went from the desert -- I'm sure, somebody knows which grid coordinates we were at. From the desert, we went up into Kuwait, right along side the Euphrates River and then across into Iraq. I never went very far into Iraq.
So, if a soldier were wounded, were you the first stop, the second stop, or --
The first stop would be an aide station and then we'd be the second stop.
I see. And that used to be called, I forgot the battalion aid or whatever --
Well, the battalion aid station still exists, they still have those and then we are not exactly the same as the Mash hospitals that you would see on Mash, but we're pretty comparable.
I see, you were able to do more than just stop the bleeding?
Oh, yes, oh, yes. We had three operating rooms. We never had more than one set up at a time. But if we needed to we would have been able to set up three operating rooms. We had surgeons. We can do major chest surgery, major orthopedic surgery. We could stabilize people to the point that they could be transferred from us all the way back to Germany or to the states, so...
Now your training is in pediatrics?
Yes, but well in the first place, I take care of 17, 18, 19, 20 years old all the time. I don't happen to care whether they are considered pediatric patients in a peacetime environment or whether they are GIs in a war.
So, you don't discriminate by age?
That's right. But also my basic nursing education, of course, is care of a human being and also one of the things that the Army made sure of, was that even though my specialty was pediatrics knowing that if I went into combat, if I were in a combat situation technically women don't go into combat, okay, so technically. But if I were in that combat hospital that I would be taking care of adults. So, they made sure that I kept up my skills in that area.
And how long were you in Desert Storm?
Seven months.
Seven months.
Yes.
And were you in emminent danger, in harms way?
I think in a way that depends on what you mean. We were, there were scud missles that landed near us.
So, at any time a scud missle could have landed on your units?
Right. I think actually, I'm going to tell you another story in a second, but I think the more danger that we were in, if you recall, Hussein gave orders to destroy many of his weapons, lit up many of the oil wells and things, so that when we perhaps in more danger from the destruction of armaments. There were some chemical weapons that were destroyed and there were some chemcial weapons that we destroyed. I'm part of a watch list in case I show any signs at some point of the after affects of being exposed to chemicals.
I see.
The funny story we had ended up taking care of a significant number of enemy prisoners of war and although they were supposed to be completely disarmed by the time they actually made it to our hospital bed, we found that we really had to check this out because on several occasions men would come in and they'd still have grenades on there belts or other armaments. Now I will say most of these guys were so happy to be someplace better no one was shooting at them they were trying to give us the grenades. They really didn't have any desire to use them but we did have some conversations with our infantrymen guards about hey, could you check this a little more carefully?
Is it not a tradition in the American military that in with the medical people, that you treat people friend or foe.
We do. We do.
And you treat them the same?
Uh-huh.
Is that true generally, would the Iraqis have done the same?
Oh --
Probably not?
I think perhaps the individual Iraqi physicians might have wanted to. Many of the Iraqi physicians then and now trained in the United States. Whether they would have been allowed to would be a different issue and then with the best in the world I think, if there's a shortage of equipment or a shortage of medication one would perhaps care for one's own first, perhaps.
So, you spent how long in the desert?
Seven months.
Seven months.
Of which only actually about three months were in what you would call harms way.
Then why were you returned after seven months? Was that a tour?
Six to seven months was sort of a tour but also that by the time that I came home, things had pretty well wound down. We were sending everybody home.
I see. And so did you in that time rub elbows with any of the Iraqis or Kuwaitis?
Lots of the Kuaitis, lots of Saudis. But the only Iraqis were the one's who were the enemy prisoners of war that I cared for.
Was there a, I'm not going to say was there, there is in those countries a double standard?
Yes. The Kuaitis who, it's a more open society, they were, it was absolutely no problem dealing with the Kuaitis. The Saudis, it was sort of amusing. We think and this is something just that we made up, okay, we think that if we were in uniform and if we acted like officers or like soldiers, they treated us as if we were men. They pretended that we were men. When all the fighting was over we were able to go into Riyadh and it happened to be Ramadan, which is always kind of a touchy time anyway.
Yes.
And at that time we had to be very careful what we wore. They didn't insist that we wore the Burka, that's full black thing, they didn't insist that we wore that, but they did not want to see in short-shorts. And I think to be respectful of their culture that one would hope that we wouldn't have gone into town inappropriately dressed.
Did you cover your head?
No, they didn't ask that. I myself either wore my uniform or I had taken one long sleeved fairly long dress with me, you know, and that's what I wore but I didn't cover my head.
So, there was never any problem with the civilians?
Not for me. I know that in different cities and in different areas there were some women who did have problems and there were some women who later after the war was well over and they were there, the small forces that was left there were some women who did have problems.
So, it would behoove you to wear your uniform which they would respect?
Yes, which they would respect.
And they would recognize the rank that you were?
Or at least that you were in uniform, that you were there as a soldier. I don't know whether they recognized the rank. I just don't know. I'm sure that the Saudi military did, but whether the civilians recognized the rank, I don't know.
Certainly you shouldn't have had a problem with the Kuwaitis because you had just rescued them.
Right, right, and certainly that's much closer to a western society.
Yes. So, after six or seven months, you were then sent?
Came back home. Came back to Fort Sam Houston, and I stayed at Brooke Army hospital there for, oh, another three or four months and then I went to graduate school to learn to be a nurse practitioner.
What is that?
Well, it's somewhere education-wise and skills-wise, it's somewhere between a floor nurse who takes cares of patients in a hospital and a physician. I could prescribe medications.
Oh, yes; the VA today uses them?
Lots of them, yes. It just seemed like a good, I wanted to do something different. I wanted a little more responsibility and a little more education and the Army was willing to send me to school. So I went from, I went to school in Galveston, which is where the University of Texas Medical School is and I was there for two years and I went from, finished that degree which is a Master's Degree, finished that and went to, was then, that's when I was assigned to Fort Knox.
Is that a Master's Degree as we understand it in any college?
Uh-huh, yes.
Now, it also seems that we have have used up our first three years and now we are probably through our second three years?
Right, at this point I think I had been in pushing nine years.
So, you re-enlisted at least twice at this point?
Yeah.
Because the Army was --
And actually for officers you don't have to re-enlist. You just don't resign, you just don't say, okay, I'm ready to get out now.
So, then you could have resigned?
I could have resigned. Once I was obligated for three years that was like a contract, but if I did not resign at the end of that three years I just stayed in until either I wanted out or for whatever.
You could have left at four, five --
I could have, right. I probably could not have left right in the two or three months before Desert Storm and I couldn't have left immediately after because there was like a stop watch in effect but at any other point, I could have gotten out.
And you came back on home then?
Yes, came back home, went to school for two years and then went to Fort Knox. And at Fort Knox now as a nurse practitioner so it's a little bit different nursing work, I ran the Well Baby Clinic there for two years which was very interesting. And again, that's a tanker base and I never had that much contact with tankers and that was kind of intersting to learn a little bit about tanks and about the men, mostly men that run the tanks and that was kind of fun. It was interesting.
And you were taking care of the dependents' children?
The dependent children, yeah.
And the military people?
Not particularly taking care of them, except in teaching them how to care for their children.
I see. You mentioned also that you went to Honduras?
Yes, the opportunity came up, the hospital at the base in Honduras is quite a small hospital and that's a six month tour down there, and they more or less asked for volunteers to go down, and it looked interesting and so when they asked for volunteers, I talked to my chief nurse and the hospital commandant and asked if they could support me leaving for six months, and they made nice noises about how you're indespensible but of course nobody is nobody is truly indispensable, and so I --
The graveyards are full of indispensable people, right?
Yes, and I was able to go down there, that was most interesting. As I say, that's a very small hospital. We didn't have a lot of in-patients. We did a lot of orthopedic injuries and things coming through the emergency room but mostly they were able to return to duty.
Now, there is a U.S. military base there?
There is a U.S. military detachment with its own permanent facility on a Honduran base.
Oh, I see.
People who have been in the military and around for a long time remember back in the 70's and 80's when we were having our little adventure with the Nicaraguans, the base there at Soto Cano was the staging area for that. It's much, much smaller now and what we do now is lots and lots of training. I would say that although we are there in case there are problems, really it's a great training area. Reserve units come down every summer and they practice their engineering skills, they go help the Hondurans' build roads and build bridges, they bring equipment down. We do lots of medical care, we mount a full fledged medical team and take it out into the jungle and work with and for some of the Hondurans out in the remote areas, that's the only medical care they get. Every three months an American military team comes.
Is that a real third world country?
Out in the rural areas it is. The cities are maybe second world.
I see. And so, you were their only medical, in any cases their only medical hope?
Right. There's probably ten nurses and six physicians at any given time or five or six physicians at any given time.
So, was it true that your work down there was probably more with the civilian population than anything?
We did, officially we were not there to provide care. You know to go back to Desert Storm, if we had a civilian that we came across, it was part of our mission to provide care. In Honduras that was not true, we were actually not there on the base to provide care. If we went out on these training missions, where we were being trained but we were providing care, that was the mission. But on the base at the small hospital, we were really not supposed to provide care to the Hondurans, however obviously if somebody shows up at your door you're not going to send them away and the Hondurans knew that, and so it was not unusual to have someone bring in a pickup truck full of people who had, when they celebrate, they fire off weapons into the air, except that when they celebrate, they also drink. And so sometimes firing the weapons into the air was a --
Yes.
So, we did provide emergency care. We also provided, as I said, many times reserve units would come down and there would be people who perhaps hadn't really kept up their physical fitness or they were just a little bit older.
What was the weather like?
Hot and humid and cooler and humid.
So, it took its toll of the American military out on exercises?
Yeah. One of the most intersting things that I did there, we had a gentleman who was probably in his 40's who had a heart attack and we wanted a hospital that had more monitoring capabilities than we had, so we went to, we took him to the Honduran Military Hospital which looks just like Toledo Hospital or just like a St. Vincent's, smaller, but the actual patient area had all the modern equipment and everything and one of us went with him and stayed with him round the clock in addition to the Honduran nurses and physicians, and that was very interesting, talking to them.
We tend to think of those countries down there as tinder boxes. Were you, did you feel there was a revolution that might be eminent? Helene-Louise Boling: No, not in the 90's. Honduras is actually a country that's growing very nicely, economically, sorry, my cats aren't very well disciplined here. They are working very hard to grow, to grow their economy, to learn new ways of -- Coffee is one of their, coffee and tobacco are two of their big crops and they are working very hard to learn better ways to grow the coffee, and given what we now know about tobacco, they are trying to diversify so they don't depend so much on tobacco. If you remember Hurricane Mitch that just devastated the whole coast of Honduras. I was down there as I said in the military and watched and was very interested as they built bridges and built roads and then after Mitch I went down with an aid group, by that time I was out of the Army and I went down with an aid group to help with their reconstruction and it was just heartbreaking to see some of the bridges that had been built almost literally by hand, big bridges that had four lane roads on them and Mitch came through and washed them out, but the people and the government said okay, we've had some very bad luck we'll take the help that you, the United States and other countries are giving us and we'll rebuild and that's what they're doing. So I very much admire the Hondurans.
Do they have a democratic form of government?
They're working on it.
You think so?
Yes. The forms are there but they still have some issues with corruption, but compared to some of the other South American countries, well, of course this is Central America, but compared to some of the South American countries I think they're making real progress.
Do they still have the strongman sort of thing?
But they're working very hard to get people to vote and to work towards --
How long were you in Honduras?
I was there nine months. Then there were some health problems in my family and the Army was thinking at that time that they had less need for pediatric nurses and I didn't want to really do anything else and so I decided that it was time for me to get out. So, I finished my nine months down there and came back to Fort Knox and spoke with my career counselor and started the process of getting out.
And you were in how many years?
Thirteen years active duty and I had the two years of Reserve.
And that all counted toward a retirement package that they gave you?
Yes, right.
But you're now a major?
Yes.
And it's hard to give up that kind of rank?
Well, yeah.
You could move to Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel and who knows?
Right, but by that time I was also, what, pushing 50 and as I said, my parents were having some health problems and I thought that would it be better to get out. So, I turned in my resignation.
I would think regrettably?
Well, with some regrets, but I've had, I've had, I've done some good interesting things since I got out too.
Yeah. Did you see the world or part of the world?
Yes.
And so it was a positive experience? Helen-Louise Fisher: Oh, very, very positive.
And so you came home.
I came home. I came to Kentucky and started looking around for a job and eventually I got actually recruited for this job here in Toledo and I came up to Toledo.
I see, what's your job here?
I am a nurse practitioner here at Toledo Childrens Hospital. When the children are ill and they're seen in the emergency room, I look after them and do their history and physical; talk to their primary care physician and plan their care.
So, you have continued in the nursing profession?
Nursing, yes.
And you care to do nothing else? This is what you're going to do then for the rest of of your working career?
That's right, that's right.
That's wonderful. So the military was over and it was a positive thing that you had done?
Yes.
And let's assume a young lady is going to come to you tomorrow and say I'm considering the U.S. military for a career?
Yes, uh-huh.
What would you say?
This actually happens quite often and I have a whole crop of them at the hospital who are thinking, who want to know whether they should go in the Reserves or not or in the Guard. I think it's a great positive experience. I talk to them and I tell them, you know, you might have to travel, you might have to go some place where people are shooting at you but overall it offers a great benefits package, a great opportunity to serve your country, great people to work with, so I'm pretty much a one person recruiting specialist.
So, you're a supporter of the US Military. That's wonderful after all those years?
Yes. My son is still on active duty.
Oh, he is?
Uh-huh, so I sort of keep up with what's going on.
And where is he?
He is in New Mexico at White Sands Missle Range.
I see. So, the service is over. You're back into your practice here in Toledo and you were, you and I met originally at the American Legion?
Yes.
And you are a member of the American Legion and rightly so.
I am.
What led you to join the veterans organization?
The church that I go to has many veterans. There are probably only two or three women and several gentlemen. Mostly World War 2 era but some that are Korea and some that are Viet Nam, and several of those gentlemen belong to the post where I met you and we would stand around after church and talk about, you know how veterans are, they tell war stories and we were telling war stories and finally one of them says, well, why don't you come and have lunch with me at my post and so I did, and I like the people that I met there and when they said, well, why don't you join, and I said, sounds like fun.
And so you did?
So, I did.
And so you keep up with the American Legion activities?
I do.
Do you ever go to the schools to talk to the children?
I have, I have.
You have.
I have a presentation that I have done on Desert Storm. I have one that I've done on women in the military and I have one that on my work down in Honduras. My daughter is a teacher and I have actually done it more through her than through the American Legion Union if she has had me come in and talk.
Do you find the children attentive to you?
I do. So, they are fascinated. They are mostly good. Of course when it's your principal's mother that does, that kind of gets your attention too, but...
But they don't get much in the way of education on America's Military?
Probably not on a military, no. She liked to have me actually wear my uniform and talk to them about what did this patch on my shoulder mean, want do these things on my collar mean.
And they ask intelligent questions of you?
Sometimes and sometimes it's less intelligent but even when they're not intelligent it's only lack of knowledge, not tended to be demeaning or stupid or anything.
But you give them maybe the realistic --
I try.
Part of the military and not the movie version that they get?
Right, right, or the war game, video games.
Well, this has been very interesting. I've enjoyed the interview and you I think covered your entire military career in the last 45 minutes or so and before we close, do you have some words of wisdom?
Well, not really. I think it's important that people honor this country. I think that love of that country, yes. I think we have a great military. That's probably where I'll stop.
And in an apt place, and thank you very much. (Interview concluded).