Interview of retired Army Colonel Mildred Caroline Fritz talks about her 29-year career in the U.S. Army Nursing Corps and serving in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts


Mildred C. Fritz:	You [repeat 00:07] the questions, I’m ready to answer.

Ruth Stewart:	M-, Mildred Fritz is being interviewed as a member of the Women's Overseas Service League – San Antonio, Texas Unit, at San Antonio on January 13, 2004. Ruth Stewart is interviewing, assisted by Carol Habgood.

	[00:26] Millie, tell us a little bit about your early life and just where you grew up and went to school.

Mildred C. Fritz:	I grew, I was born in…

Ruth Stewart:	[00:37] Okay.

Mildred C. Fritz:	…where are we now?

Ruth Stewart:	[00:38] Let me [throat clearing], let me start over, just in case. Um, Mildred Fritz is being interviewed this morning as a member of the San Antonio Unit of the Women's Overseas Service League. Um, this is, uh, January 13, 2004. Ruth Stewart is interviewing, assisted by Carol Habgood.

	[1:03] Okay, Millie, would you tell us a little bit again about your early life?

Mildred C. Fritz:	I, uh, was born and raised in Collingswood, New Jersey, which is South Jersey, just outside of Camden. I, uh, as a youngster, early on, decided I wanted to be a nurse and, uh, when the war broke out in 1941, I guess it was, uh, that made me determined to be an army nurse. I, uh, directly after high school entered Hahnemann Hospital School of Nursing, a 3-year program. Uh, as far as that time, after I became a cadet nurse, one of those. Uh, I didn’t affiliate with any of the, uh, of the military hospitals but stayed on and was given the position of night supervisor. I stayed at that job for 5 years and at that point, uh, my friend, [Jane Shiffman 2:10], who was also a classmate, uh, came through and said that she was joining the army. I said, uh, “When you get home on leave the next time, come and tell me all about it,” which she did, along with the paperwork, so I applied for a commission at that time and I was, uh, sworn in on the 5th of December in 1951. Uh, then in February, I left to go to Fort Sam Houston to, for basic officer training. Uh, aspiring to do everything that was so very, very proper, I said, “I’d like to be assigned to the Walter Reed Army Medical C-, General Hospital, I think it was at that time. I’m not sure if it was a medical center or not. But I thought that would be the place to learn all about army nursing. I was, I was assigned to a female surgical ward, of all things, but shortly thereafter, I was reassigned and became head nurse of an OR surgical ward. Uh, not too long after that, I was, uh, given orders – let’s see, I stayed there about a year and a half, I guess – uh, I was, uh, given orders to go to, uh, the Orient. Uh, once I got there, I was assigned to the 382nd General Hospital outside of Osaka, Japan, where, uh, I was made surg. nurse, staff nurse, and, uh, there was a group of us, all the same age, same kind of experiences, and we had a pretty good time learning all about the horticulture of rice for, uh, the 2 years that I was there. Didn’t want to land and was ready to get back on a plane to come home as soon as I saw the dark rooftops of Tokyo, but I was in tears when I left the country. Uh, not knowing that I should have put in for an assignment afterwards, uh, I was designated to go to Fort Hood, which is also in Texas. Um, I got there and, uh, was assigned to pediatrics, the furthest thing from my mind, but it wasn’t too long and I became the head nurse of the pediatric ward. Um, about a year into that, I was tol-, asked if, uh, to go to a ward administration supervisor course at Fort Sam Houston, which I did. And, uh, that was an experience in itself. We, uh, we had, what can I say, we had a good time, as well as we learned a lot.

Ruth Stewart:	[05:21] What was your training there?

Mildred C. Fritz:	Ward supervision – ward administration supervision course. We, uh, we were kind of penalized, we thought afterward, because we all had to go on Operation King Cole in the swamps of Louisiana, which we did during horrible rainfall and playing in the mud and wet tents and all that sort of thing. That was my big field experience. I, uh, following that, I went to Fitzsimmons General Hospital out in Denver, Colorado, and when I got there, the chief nurse said, “Oh, we need a nurse in the recovery room,” so I went to the recovery room at that point and one of my classmates from, uh, Fort Sam Houston was there and she said, “Oh, you’re going to take care of open-heart surgery patients today.” I said, well, I kind of gulped at that.

Ruth Stewart:	[6:20] You got a little bit of everything in there, didn’t you? [laughter]

Mildred C. Fritz:	I went on to become a, the assistant head nurse of the recovery room and developed a program whereby, uh, I oriented and supervised the nurses that were designated, uh, to take care of the open-heart surgery patients. Now, this was in the very, very early days of cardiac surgery, and nobody knew too much about what they were doing. They only knew that they had to realize what they were doing when they were taking care of these patients. Uh, while I was doing this, I was getting my bachelor’s degree in nursing education from the University of Denver. The, uh, SGO thought so much of this developmental course that they sent another person from Washington to determine the value of it and this, in turn, became a, a program. Uh, well, which went on to become the med-surg course because the nurses that were coming into the army at that time did not have that much experience. At any rate, after I developed, after I got my degree from Denver U, um, I was, I was asked, uh, did I want to go on to graduate school? [throat clearing] Uh, another friend of mine said that Catholic University in Washington, D.C. had a course in cardiovascular nursing, so I applied for only it and I was accepted. I spent 3 semesters and a summer session getting my master’s in cardiovascular nursing, cardiovascular diseases. Following that, I was sent to Germany and, en route, I was promoted to major along the way. Uh, I was designated to go to 2nd General Hospital in Landstuhl. Um, that was an experience in itself. They, uh, I became the head nurse of the unit – that was intensive care and, uh, we were the intensive care unit for all of Europe. We used to get cases from all over Europe. And, one of my additional duties while there was to be a train nurse so, about once a month, I’d take off to be on the train with the patients being evacuated to the United States.

	After that tour of duty, I was sent to Brooke Army Medical Center and became head nurse of the thoracic/cardiovascular unit, which was also the recovery/intensive care area. We did a bang-up business there. That was, uh, busy, busy, busy. And, this is the time that, uh, things were developing in Vietnam.

Ruth Stewart:	[9:51] Ahh.

Mildred C. Fritz:	I was replaced on the ward and put into evening and night supervisor by the chief nurse so that I would have additional experience in administration. And, before long, I had orders to go to Vietnam. When I arrived there, I was assigned to the 24th Evacuation Hospital. Uh, this was on Long Binh; it was a very safe area, but we worked like dogs. Uh, initially, I was a med-surg supervisor and then I became the assistant chief nurse of the unit.

Ruth Stewart:	[10:28] Was this caring for combatants?

Mildred C. Fritz:	Yes, definitely. We, they’d air evac’m in and we worked through the night trying to repair them. Uh, it was…

Ruth Stewart:	[10:39] What kind of a facility…

Mildred C. Fritz:	It was, um, maxillofacial, uh, uh, and, uh, neurosurgery center. Uh, very few medical patients, per se, but a lot of extensive surgeries. They used to refer to some of the big cases as career cases. We’d be in the operating room 8 to 10 hours at a time. It was, uh, I think the saddest part about that was, and it never failed, that when I was on nights and we’d be, they’d come with the choppers about 5:00 in the morning to evacuate the patients to Sai-, uh, Saigon and invariably when taking the patients out to the, to the helicopter I’d break down in tears. I was promoted to lieutenant colonel when I left, uh, Vietnam and was assigned to Fitzsimmons again. At this point, I was told by Colonel [Tracey 11:47] that I knew more about intensive care than anybody else and they wanted me to develop the med-surg course into an intensive care nursing course. This, I did from January ’70 to August of ’74, when I left Fitzsimmons to, again, return to Germany. This time, to the 130th uh, Station Hospital in Heidelberg, where I was chief nurse. Oh, a very interesting assignment, to say the very least. 

Ruth Stewart:	[12:26] What was the most interesting part of it?

Mildred C. Fritz:	It’s hard to say. It w-, it was kind of an isolated, uh, assignment and as much as I had to live on the economy, uh, there were a few others, all the other nurses were much younger than I was, so it was, it was kind of isolated, from that standpoint. Uh, that was when I got into volksmarching and I…

Ruth Stewart:	[12:59] Was that your major recreation?

Mildred C. Fritz:	Yes, definitely. Uh, in, uh, January of ’76, I was promoted to [corps 13:17] colonel and was reassigned then to, they want-, let’s see, Washington wanted me to go to, uh, Georgia and I said no, I wanted to go back to Fort Sam Houston because I had a home in San Antonio and, uh, I’d rather go back to Brooke Army Medical Center, which they did and, uh, I said I’d stay on duty indefinitely at that point in time. Uh, so I became chief of education training [advancing 13:57] and I stayed on until I retired in September of ’79.

Ruth Stewart:	[14:13] What were the memorable parts of your career in the Army Nurse Corps?

Mildred C. Fritz:	I think it was becoming involved with cardiac surgery patients. Uh…

Ruth Stewart:	[14:29] You were in the forefront of that, for sure.

Mildred C. Fritz:	Very much so. Um, Fitzsimmons was the only hospital that was doing it. I have maintained, um, maintained at that time, records of the cases and I’m about to get all that stuff together, uh, to take to the Army Medical Museum, the data from that. This is the days when we did cardiac surgery nursing with a stethoscope and a, a blood pressure cuff.

Ruth Stewart:	[15:06] And your judgment.

Mildred C. Fritz:	And judgment. That was, uh, not all the marvelous mechanical means and electronics that they use today but, to me, that was, I guess you could say that was frontier nursing.

Ruth Stewart:	[15:25] It was real nursing.

Mildred C. Fritz:	Definitely.

Ruth Stewart:	[15:27] You were using your nursing rather than equipment.

Mildred C. Fritz:	And it was truly bedside nursing, which we don’t see too much of today, I’m afraid.

Ruth Stewart:	[15:38] That sounds like it was very satisfying to you.

Mildred C. Fritz:	It was. Uh, but, you know, it had its sad points, too, because there were many youngsters that just didn’t make it. But that’s, that’s how progress is made.

Ruth Stewart:	[15:56] Mm-hm. In the program that you developed in cardiovascular nursing, um, how did that evolve and, and where did it go?

Mildred C. Fritz:	Well, the initial program evolved into becoming a, first, I think they called in a recovery room course so that they would know what to do with postoperative patients. And then, in as much as the nurses had such little experience when they came on active duty with their bachelor’s degrees, uh, it became a med-surg nursing ca-, course. Uh, it was, while I was, when I came back from Vietnam that I was told to make it into an intensive care course, which I did through, we had, uh, upwards of 12 students twice a year and, uh, I still see some of them, many of them have retired by now though. It was interesting work.

Ruth Stewart:	[17:05] And, so you’ve had a major impact, in terms of nursing and developing new areas, specifically in the army but, of course, that is often the, um, cutting edge, if you will, of moving into civilian when…

Mildred C. Fritz:	My initial thought when I went on active duty was to see the people that are coming back that have been in the army are getting good jobs and, uh, I was thinking I didn’t want to stay in night supervision for the rest of my life so that, that’s one of the reasons I went in the army. And, uh, then I found it to my liking much better than anything else that I had seen. The intensive care course is still being given. I’m not sure where.

Ruth Stewart:	[17:59] Basically, the same one you developed?

Mildred C. Fritz:	I think so. Well, of course, it’s made progress since then, as well, as more developments have taken place.

Ruth Stewart:	[18:07] You have to teach that equipment. [laughter]

Mildred C. Fritz:	That’s right. [laughter] Right. What else can I tell you?

Ruth Stewart:	[18:16] What, what about your living conditions as an individual? You mentioned a little bit in Kor-, in Vietnam but, back in Japan, what was your living like there?

Mildred C. Fritz:	It was a cantonment-type hospital. Um, it was, uh, 2 girls to a room and a community bathroom situation in one of those cantonment buildings. And, if you were on night duty, you know, it was just tough. Everything was going on around you at the same time. Um, it, it was a fascinating, uh, type of nursing, in that we would get them directly from Korea. They would have had their wounds debrided but we would get them for secondary closure. And there were nights when we’d get as many as 50 to 75 evacuation patients at the same time. They would all have to be seen and designated for the wards. I was into night supervision at that point, well, one of the chores that I did with my med-surg rotation was supervision there. It, it, it didn’t leave you much time to think about – you were busy all the time. When you did have days off, if you were lucky enough to be able to get into Osaka and to Kobe and Kyoto so we absorbed quite a bit of, uh, Japanese culture at the time.

Ruth Stewart:	[20:03] And then in Vietnam you had a, you said you were rather isolated there and had a…

Mildred C. Fritz:	No, no, we weren’t particularly isolated on Long Binh. Uh, again, we were in, uh, semi-permanent buildings, I guess you’d say. The hospital itself was a collection of Quonset huts and these, these wooden, tropical-type buildings that we lived in were, uh, single rooms with community bath accommodations. Uh, with, with maids, of course, Vietnamese maids roaming around. Um, but it was, it was tough from the standpoint that you’re on 12-hour duty. Uh, virtually 6 days out of 7. And, nothing to do besides that. You’re too exhausted,

Ruth Stewart:	[21:00] Mm-hm.

Mildred C. Fritz:	Uh, you couldn’t go anyplace. Uh, you could go, one time, on R&R but that didn’t ta-, that didn’t erase any of the sights that you had seen there.

Ruth Stewart:	[21:14] Mm-hm, mm-hm. So then after getting out of the Army Nurse Corps, uh, you had a full, how many years there in the army?

Mildred C. Fritz:	In the army? Almost 29.

Ruth Stewart:	[21:28] 29 years. That’s a long career there. Was it a real challenge to you then to adjust to civilian life after that?

Mildred C. Fritz:	Uh, perhaps it was, I, I, I’ve never given it much thought. Uh, I came back to my home that I had purchased back in, oh, 1964, and proceeded to update it and bring it to all the additional things that one does to a home to make’m livable. Uh, so that I could retire in, at ease, and not have to do too much work on the outside. I spent a lot of time gardening. I became quite an active gardener. Uh, and then, a consid-, considerable amount of traveling, as well.

Ruth Stewart:	[22:23] Did you continue your volksmarching?

Mildred C. Fritz:	I did until, uh, [laughter] my knees gave out on me. And, uh, so I slacked off on that.

Ruth Stewart:	[22:35] Mm-hm. Did you work in, uh, join any military or veteran’s organizations other than WOSL?

Mildred C. Fritz:	I, I’ve, uh, belonged to the Retired Army Nurse Corps Association, which is now no longer considered retired; it’s Army Nurse Corps Association, I think. I joined the Military Order of World War II, but I’ve never attended a meeting. Uh, TROA.

Ruth Stewart:	[23:09] What was that?

Mildred C. Fritz:	TROA. That’s got a different name now, too, though. Retired Officers Association. That’s it.

Ruth Stewart:	[23:20] And, of your memories of your entire career, are there any that stand out especially as being very important to you or even numerous events that came up?

Mildred C. Fritz:	It seems that all of my life was, involved cardiac surgery nursing and intensive care, so I’v-, uh, I’ve gotten completely away from hospitals at this point, other than the volunteer work I do on Friday mornings at, at, at Brooke Army Medical Center.

Ruth Stewart:	[23:56] What do you do as a volunteer?

Mildred C. Fritz:	I sit at the information desk and tell people how to get to the different clinics and listen to their sad stories.

Ruth Stewart:	[24:06] Well, probably that latter part is the most important part. You’re still a nurse. [laughter]

Mildred C. Fritz:	I commiserate, yes.

Ruth Stewart:	[24:11] Yeah, okay. Um, did your career through 2 wars and caring for combatants affect your view of war in any way?

Mildred C. Fritz:	I don’t think it has. Uh, I don’t know what I would have done if I’d have been a civilian. I would probably have been in a very deep rut, uh, back in Philadelphia. Um, and not, uh, not enjoyed life near as much as I have since then. And, when you’ve got that itchy foot as a youngster, I can remember as a student nurse, uh, going to the post office in Johnny Wanamaker’s and they’d have all these positions open overseas for nurses and other personnel and I’d think, “Gee, wouldn’t it be fun to sign up to go to some of those countries?” So, joining the army took care of all that.

Ruth Stewart:	[25:28] So it’s been an interesting and full life for you as an army nurse?

Mildred C. Fritz:	I think it has. I think it has.

Ruth Stewart:	[25:35] Thank you very, very much, Millie.


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