We have been learning about Sharon McCully, who grew up on the family farm near Verdi before moving with her family to Sycamore, Illinois, and then back to another farm near Russell, . Sharon graduated from Russell High School in 1957 and trained as a registered nurse in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, graduating in 1962. She began her nursing career with the Indian Health Service on a South Dakota reservation where she learned valuable nursing and socio-cultural skills. After an illness cut short her time there, she and a nursing friend moved to Spokane, Washington.

Sharon reflected on her Spokane time.

“I did hospital work, but also worked in long-term care. I did a lot of staff teaching in the nursing home. I worked in a large, Catholic hospital where I worked in the booth that held all the intravenous fluids or blood that people needed. We would start it all. I liked all my jobs in Spokane. I liked being busy and doing for others and that was a wonderful way to do it.”

Sharon joined the Air Force while in Spokane.

“I had always wanted to travel and see new things. I wanted to go into the Air Force when I graduated from nursing school, but my brother was in the Air Force and said the Air Force was not a place for a girl. Well, as a civilian nurse when you go from one job to another, you always start at the bottom and work up again. I could only do that for so long. After six years I decided I was going to try it again. By 1968 I thought Air Force blue was the best color ever. (Sharon chuckled) I went in mainly for travel and the opportunity to keep moving, but gaining rank. (Sharon smiled) I got all that.”

Because of Sharon’s prior nursing experience the Air Force commissioned her a 1st lieutenant in the Air Force Nurse Corps at nearby Fairchild Air Force Base in spring of 1968.

Sharon had orders to Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, for officer training, but encountered an unexpected detour on her path to the Air Force.

“I was home for three weeks or so. It was during that time that the tornado went through Tracy, Minnesota. Because I was a Red Cross nurse, I went to Tracy and persuaded the guards to let me through to the hospital to work. I stayed there a couple of days and helped with anything that needed to be done because there were so many injured and so many grieving the losses, especially of children. That was heart-wrenching.”

The officer training course at Sheppard Air Force Base proved challenging for Sharon for unexpected reasons.

“I arrived a day or two before I was to go on base. I was staying at a motel and had gone out by the swimming pool. I was lying there reading and didn’t realize I was getting sun-burned. So, when I reported to base, I was hurting. (Sharon laughed) The dispensary said they didn’t take care of you for sunburns because you are causing your own injury. So, I suffered. (Sharon chuckled) It was hard to sit. It was hard to march. Then you had to be fitted with all the different kinds of uniforms that you had.”

Sharon persevered through the sunburn pain and completed her initial officer training in good shape. She was buoyed by the knowledge that her Aunt Melba, a WWII Army nurse, was proud of Sharon’s entering the nation’s service as an Air Force Nurse.

The Air Force assigned her to Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts, an assignment location much to Sharon’s liking.

“I thought I was next to heaven there at Otis. I liked New England. (Sharon chuckled) I became friends with a civilian nurse who worked on base. She and her family lived close to the water. Sometimes, if the tide was out, I would go with them in the mornings after I got off work and we’d dig clams (Sharon laughed) and eat them on the half-shell.”

Sharon described the base hospital and working conditions.

“The hospital was built on stilts for WWII for a life of maybe 20 or 25 years. It had all these wards off the main hallway, all raised up. I worked a lot on the night shift, which was 11 at night to seven in the morning. Being nurses, we dressed in whites, but most of the nurses wore scrubs, except they weren’t nice like they are now. Those were a yucky green.”

Although excited to report to her first Air Force assignment, Sharon’s initial work assignment at Otis caused some soul-searching.

“This was less than a year since my sister had died giving birth. I had determined I was never going to obstetrics (OB) because it took my sister. Well, sure enough the chief nurse said, ‘Lieutenant Johnson, you’re going to work in OB.’ I had a head nurse on the unit, a large Black major, who had a gruff appearance, but a big heart of gold. I was honest with her, telling her about my sister and my fears and she took me under her wing and helped me through it. I learned a lot and it turned out to be a great experience. I also took surgery call at night and on weekends to relieve the regular, surgical nurse. That proved to be quite a learning experience as well.”

While at Otis, Sharon fixed her sights on another goal, becoming an Air Force flight nurse.

©2024 William D. Palmer