November 5, 2004

Photo/Media Advisory: Story ideas for Idaho Nurses Association program honoring veteran nurses When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11 (Veterans Day) Where: Anderson Center at St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center Who: Dozens of Idaho nurse veterans will be honored including six Boise State faculty “The carnage was worse than I ever could have imagined,” said Anne Payne about her experience as an Army nurse assigned to the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Long Binh during the Vietnam War. Payne, a Boise State University nursing professor, is one of the dozens of nurses to be honored this Veterans Day by the Idaho Nurses Association at a program a 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 11, in the Anderson Center at St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center. The Idaho Nurses Association will recognize veteran nurses for their contributions to mankind throughout our nation’s history.  All veteran nurses and the public are welcome.  Media representatives are welcome to attend and interview/photograph veterans at this program. This week prior to Veterans Day Boise State nursing professors are available for interviews. Some of the nurse veterans have photographs from their military service available. They all have stories to share that would be interesting to the community. The keynote speaker will be the Rev. Canon Alice Farquhar-Mayes of St. Michael’s Episcopal Cathedral. Farquhar-Mayes is a veteran nurse who served in the Vietnam War and had the honor of presenting the invocation and benediction at the dedication of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1993.  In addition to Payne, five Boise State nursing faculty will be among the nurses honored. Jan Satterwhite remembers what a sobering experience it was to view the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North Korea and South Korea for the first time in 1977.  “Seeing that abyss surrounded by barbed wire and massive armed guards shook me out of my fantasyland where freedom was the norm,” she said.  Satterwhite served in Seoul, South Korea providing nursing care to soldiers and their families for 12 months.  As a lieutenant, Pat Taylor cared for major trauma cases at the San Diego Naval Hospital during the Vietnam War.  Sara Ahten entered the U.S. Army Reserve Nurse Corps in1993 through a program that allowed her to complete her bachelor’s degree in nursing through the University of Illinois. She served as a 1st lieutenant in the Reserve Nurse Corps from 1995 to 2002. Joan Weddington was deployed just two weeks after the invasion of Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. Weddington said the nurses quickly became a family, “a team, focused on the task at hand in a time of crisis.” She also served in Honduras on a humanitarian mission and was amazed by the Honduran people’s faith in American medical care, their willingness to walk for days to receive care and their overwhelming gratitude.  Weddington currently serves in the Army Reserve as the battalion commander of the 9th Battalion, 5th Brigade, 104th Division in Dublin, Calif. With a long family history of service in the U.S. military, Sandra Engebretsen was “recruited” by her oldest daughter, who was an active duty Navy member.  “Mom, they need nurses,” she said.  “How can you say ‘No’ to your country and to your firstborn?”  Engebretsen applied to the U.S. Naval Reserves and was commissioned as an officer in 1989, going on to serve until 2002 when she was honorably discharged at the rank of commander.  During her years of service, she distinguished herself as O.I.C. (officer-in-charge) for the largest medical unit in Utah during Operation Desert Storm. As a reserve officer pursuing her Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Utah, Engebretsen wrote a doctoral dissertation, “Infant Birth Weights and Psychosocial Profiles of Military Mothers,” that showed statistically significant relationships between overall stress of pregnant military women and low birth weights of their newborns. As a follow-on, she received three federal grants from the TriService Nursing Research Group totaling more than $400,000 to continue her research.  Each of these nursing faculty have a story to tell about their experiences in the military. Many spoke of the camaraderie, the teamwork, the leadership and nursing skills gained.  They were more reluctant to speak of the horrors of war, the pain, the sacrifice or the courage it took to be a nurse in the military.  All agree that their lives have been forever changed because of their experiences and all continue to share their passion for nursing and nursing education as faculty at Boise State.  For more information about the Idaho Nurses Association program to honor nurse veterans please contact Sharon Stoffels at (208) 426-3631 or sstoffel@boisestate.edu or Margaret Kemp at (208) 426-4143 or mkemp@boisestate.edu.