I inherited Aggie from my mother.

That’s Mom, (Pauline Garrity Wetta) in the picture to the left. It’s amazing that Aggie  is such a dear friend considering our age difference. I think that Aggie is my inheritance from my mother. They became best friends in nursing school during WW II. Without Aggie, Mom may not have graduated because she was quite the rebel.  After becoming an RN (registered nurse), Aggie joined the Army where she qualified to be a flight nurse so she became part of the Army Air Corps.

She is such a humble lady that she never discusses this part of her life unless prodded. Then her usual comment was, “Oh I don’t remember much. We all just did what needed to be done.”

She helped keep 28 wounded soldiers and crew safe when the flight had to ditch over the Pacific.

When her twinkling eyes try to bluff as they look over the top of a hand of cards, you’d never guess the things she has done and seen. One dark night she helped keep 28 wounded soldiers and crew safe when their two engine plane lost one over the Pacific, and had to ditch. This occurred shortly after the war ended, and the men were being air-lifted from far-outlying islands to Hawaii. The flight was blessed with a pilot who had flown the route so often that he was able to find a deserted atoll to set down on.  

Because most of Aggie’s service, during the action, was spent on medical flights within the US, she always down-played her work saying the nurses in the battle zones were the angels. Transporting the wounded in the States may not have been as dangerous as in the areas of conflict, but it was still difficult and required constant work with multiple types of injuries. The first soldiers Aggie treated were returning from hospitals in Europe where they had received basic treatment after suffering horrible wounds on the battle fields. Some of the worst were  mutilations suffered during the horrible, freezing Battle of the Bulge. Many men still required extensive hospitalization and care once shipped to the US.  Aggie said that the burn victims, amputees, and psyche cases broke her heart the most. The latter because she knew very few people in the ‘40s understood mental illness at all.

Some of the worst were the injuries and mutilations suffered during the horrible, freezing Battle of the Bulge.

At first Aggie was stationed at in Florida where her flights originated. They would fly to Washington so men could be treated at Walter Reed, then on to New York, Chicago and out to San Diego. At each stop they delivered wounded to hospitals closer to home, and picked up others to transport to facilities farther west.

Aggie was bound for Hawaii aboard a solitary troop transport from Seattle when Japan finally surrendered.  Because of the constant threat of attack from Japanese, all were on high alert.  When the whistles started sounding and “All hear this,” came over the ship’s loud speakers, the crew and nurses being trasported were sure they were being attacked— until the wonderful announcement that the war was over. The ship burst into noisy celebration.

12 to 15 hour flights from islands as far away as Japan and the Philippines were the norm as the last fighting occurred in the far east of the Pacific.

Once the nurses reached Honolulu, they went through a quick orientation and began flying to islands where many men were awaiting medical attention. 12 to 15 hour flights from islands as far away as Japan and the Philippines were the norm as the last fighting occurred in the far east of the Pacific.  Because of restrictions on how long crews could fly in one day, sometimes they flew to Haneda Air Base in Japan with a plane filled with supplies and then picked up wounded on the way back to Hickam Air Base. Each flight had 25-30 men with various wounds, some of them quite critical. They were flown to Hawaii for assessment and stabilizing care before being flown to the States.  Aggie also accompanied five of those long flights to California during her service. She said the celebration was almost holy as they flew over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Last year Aggie moved to Arizona to live with her daughter because her advanced glaucoma prevented her driving and was slowly stealing her independence. Also her daughter had retired and wanted to spend more time with her mother. (Imagine that!)  A couple of weeks ago, during our weekly phone call, Aggie was frustrated that their pool was not yet warm enough to get in each morning for a relaxing swim. “The nights are still too cool so the water doesn’t warm up enough.”   I hope when I am 97, I will be as full of life and as much fun to be around as this wonderful lady who helped earn the title of “Greatest” for her generation.

Aggie was 97 on May 27th.