[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12722]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE U.S. NAVY NURSE CORPS

 Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, today I wish to commemorate the 
100th anniversary of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps.
  As a proud supporter of the Navy Nurse Corps, both the officers and 
the many enlisted and civilian personnel who work alongside them, I am 
pleased that we are recognizing their contributions to our navy and our 
great nation.
  On May 13, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Naval 
Appropriations bill that authorized the establishment of the Nurse 
Corps as a unique staff corps of the Navy. A small group of trained 
nurses were carefully chosen to establish an ``orderly, disciplined 
corps with a respectable reputation and excellent benefits, if somewhat 
limited pay.'' Leaving societal norms behind, the Sacred Twenty, led by 
Ms. Esther Voorhees Hasson, introduced safe hygiene practices in the 
care of patients and trained enlisted medical personnel.
  By 1918, the Nurse Corps grew to over 1,030. During World War I, Navy 
nurses served on ships and deployed to Europe to serve at base 
hospitals in France, Scotland and Ireland. Superintendent Lenah 
Sutcliffe Higbee was recognized with the Navy Cross for her success in 
developing an innovative training camp which quickly prepared nurses to 
meet the growing war requirement. Many years later, Superintendent 
Hibgee would receive a most auspicious honor when she became the first 
living woman and only Navy nurse to have a ship named after her. The 
destroyer, USS Higbee was commissioned in 1944.
  World War II became the defining moment in the lives of an entire 
generation of Americans. Amidst the startling images of the horrors 
associated with war, came heroic accounts of the tenacity and faith 
demonstrated by American servicemen and women on a daily basis. On 
battlefronts from North Africa to Italy to Normandy to Corregidor and 
Bataan, the nurses of World War II contributed greatly to the care of 
the wounded, the morale of the fighting men, and the development of 
nursing as a profession. It was during this war, that 11 Navy Nurses 
were taken prisoner by the Imperial Japanese in the Philippines. 
Spending thirty seven months in an internment camp where starvation and 
psychological warfare were commonplace, these nurses continued to care 
for patients without regard to self.
  Throughout the war, Navy nurses served at 40 naval hospitals, 176 
dispensaries, on board 12 hospital ships and as flight nurses on air 
evacuation missions. Admiral Halsey said of Navy nurses: ``They 
magnificently upheld the highest traditions of U.S. Naval Service.'' 
Navy nurses earned over 300 military awards for their exceptional duty 
during the war.
  From the humble beginnings of the pioneering ``Sacred Twenty'' to 
today's Nurse Corps force of 4,100 strong, Navy nurses continue to 
answer the call of duty whether it is at the bedside of a patient in a 
stateside military hospital, in a joint humanitarian mission aboard a 
hospital ship transiting the Pacific or in the throes of conflict in 
Iraq.
  Today we recognize the men and women of the Navy Nurse Corps for 
their selfless service and dedication to our nation and our military. I 
commend the Navy Nurse Corps for its commitment to excellence and for a 
century of leadership and caring for America's Navy and Marine Corps 
from 1908 to 2008.

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