Summer 1945 and the war was 1 million men old. Hang on, jim. Keep your eyes shut tight and drink. They are moving you back now. Dont give up. Just hang on. The road back is bumpy and maybe the pain blurs your eyes. But listen, the sound of battle grows dim. Now one question cuts clearly through the haze. Which man will you be, the one who gets hurt and dies, or the one who gets hurt and lives. When the dizziness stopped and the fog cleared, an army nurse was at your side. A woman who meant safety and comfort and home to thousands of men before you, a woman who meant all those things to you. A nurse brought another americans blood to your side to pour new strength into your veins. A nurse handed clamps to the surgeon and counted sponges. A nurse prepared and administered the anesthetic and watched you constantly for any telltale change in your breathing or blood pressure. All working with the same purpose, to ease the pain of war, to help save lives. The preparation for the moment that
Years later. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv, this weekend on cspan 3. Summer, 1945. And the war was 1 million men old. Hang on jim. Keep your eyes shut tight, and drink. They are moving you back now. Do not give up, just hang on. The road back is bumpy, and maybe the plane blurs arise. But listen, porn you strength into your veins. A nurse handed clumps to a surgeon and counted sponges. A nurse prepared and administered the anesthetics and watch you constantly for any detailed tell in your blood pressure. All working with the same purpose to ease the pain of war, to help save lives. The preparation for the moment that we bring the army nurse to your side began months before back home in the United States. After three years of professional schooling, the nurses were given four weeks of basic training. And those early days, perhaps the nurse wondered why she had to sit through seemingly endless classes and submit to rigid discipline. Often while muscles ached ing
Space here. Today, we are going to talk about american women in world war ii. And this is, obviously, a huge talker. We could spend an entire semester just on this topic alone. We will try to break it down to three different spaces, and we will look at a lot of images to kind of fit into the other things that weve talked about. So, we are going to talk about american women in three ways. We are going to talk about women at home, okay . Women at work. And women at war. Do so, we are going to kind of organize our ideas this way. We are going to look at a lot of the propaganda weve been talking about propaganda throughout the semester, and watching videos and things like that. We will get a chance to talk about everybody found that to be okay . The all right. Its a good one on women at work during world war ii, you can find it on the National Archives of sight, right . But we will talk about that in this portion, and we will talk about these different parts of women during american women
American women in three ways, were going to talk about women at home. Women at work and women at war. Were just going to kind of organize our ideas this way, and were going to look at a lot of the propaganda, weve been talking about propaganda this semester, well get a chance to talk about everybody found that video okay, the all right, its a good one on women at work during world war ii. You can find it on the National Archives website. Well talk about that in this portion, well talk about that in these different parts of american women during world war ii, were just hitting the survey of this, theres so much we could talk about throughout the entire semester. And we do all of u. S. And world war ii, except we cant do all of it, we do our bits and pieces. Weve already talked about some of these things. Some of it will be familiar, especially when we get to the women at work part. Be sure to stop me if you have any questions and well do our thi thing. Sew women at home. When we think a
So as we leave world war ii and the legislation that gave women a permanent part of the military, we are we wait just a few short years and we are faced with war on the korean peninsula. There was such a concern that it would be a world war, like world war ii was that we recalled people to service, to be sure we had people in place to be part of this war and many of them were women as well for the first time. It didnt turn out that way that we needed that many. At any rate, most of the women who served in korea on the ground were army nurses. It was a horrendous situation with, they would barely get established and set up a hospital and they would have to move. We have one diary from a woman, a nurse, who talked about setting up a hospital in an abandoned school. It was dirty, and it was hot but they needed to close the windows because rats crawled up the outside of the building. And those were the conditions under which someone served. There were long hours of duty for all of us. We w