Native Army Nurses
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Facts about Native American Army Nurses of WW ll

1.      According to the publication “Indians At Work”, Anna Benton, of Bethel, Alaska, was the first Native Alaskan woman to enter the Armed Forces.
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2.      Elsie Hogner, Cherokee, of Stillwell, Oklahoma, was assigned to the hospital at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas.  She was a graduate of the University of Minnesota School of Nursing.
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3.      Marcella Ryan Lebeau, Cheyenne River Sioux, served with the 76th General Hospital in Leige, Belgium.  Her many memories include the daily buzz bomb attacks on the hospital.
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4.      Evadna Diesel Muscavitch, Oneida, was with the 100th General Hospital in France.  She remembers setting up pup tents in a cow pasture in the rain, water rationing and open air mess.
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5.      Julia Nashanany Reeves, Forest County Potawotomi, was one of the women photographed for a 1942 “LIFE” article on the Army nurses on New Caledonia. 
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6.      Army nurse Viola Garcia Schneider, Catawba, cared for the survivors of the Bataan Death Camps while serving in Japan.
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7.      According to the Summer 1997 issue of the Karuk Tribe of California Newsletter, Lena Swearingen, Karuk, was an Army nurse who flew air evacuation. (She is one of 2 Native women I know of that served as flight nurses during WW II.  During this time medical air evacuation was a new specialty and these nurses were the pioneers.)
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