Denison's
first war nurse home from foreign service is
Second Lt. Eileen Badgett,
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. R.C. Badgett, 218
West Heron, who spent a year
in an army station hospital in Australia.
A severe cut on the
left hand, suffered
in the accidental breaking of a medicine
bottle, sent the Denison girl
back to the States early this month.
Now a convalescing patient
at Ashburn General Hospital at McKinney, Lt.
Badgett spent the week-end
with her parents here.
Enlisting as an army
nurse in April,
1941, Lt. Badgett spent two years on general
duty in this county and
went overseas in September, 1943. She
was with an evacuation
unit, headed for service close to the front,
but the outfit was
assigned to detached service at the
Australian station hospital where
the Denisonian remained until returning to
the States.
SOLDIER GOOD PATIENTS
"The American boys
not only are good
fighters - they're also good patients," Lt.
Badgett says of the many
soldiers and marines she administered to
while serving in the hospital
surgery department. "They don't worry
much about their injuries
and keep in high spirits."
Lt. Badgett said that
the marines
especially, most of them very young, were a
carefree lot at the
hospital. She described them as
"chipper little fellows".
After treatment the
wounded were to the
United States. Lt. Badgett said that
coming home meant so much to
the men that they didn't find time to worry
about their injuries.
On the boat bringing
the Denisonian home
were a number of Australian brides of
American servicemen, many of them
with young babies. She described the
Australian women as "nice
girls" and agreed that Australian wives for
American soldiers "are all
right if they want them."
BORN IN ENGLAND
Even before World War
II, Lt. Badgett
had something of an international
background. She was born in
Hull, England, after her father, an American
sailor during World War I,
married an English girl. The family
came to Denison when Eileen
was a small child.
After graduating from
Denison High
School in 1937, Lt. Badgett entered nurse's
training at St. Joseph's
Hospital, Fort Worth. where she graduated in
1940. She became an
army nurse eight months before Pearl Harbor.
Lt. Badgett trained
at Ft. Wolters and
spent five months with the troops in the
field during the Louisiana
maneuvers. Even after oversea duty,
she still winces at the
memory of the field maneuvers.
At Camp Barkeley, the
nurses went through commando training along
with the men preparatory to going overseas.
She still remembers
her first patient in
Australia, a Negro soldier who had been
burned severely in a gasoline
explosion., who finally returned to the
States after much skin grafting
and the amputation of a leg.
Lt. Badgett gives
assurance that
American wounded are receiving every
possible attention in army
hospitals. She explains that the
hospitals are fully equipped and
staffed with top medical talent.
The Denison girl
doesn't know where she
will be sent after her release from the
McKinney hospital, but it
likely will not be overseas again.
Courtesy
of Sharon L.
Ward, niece of Eileen Badgett Olson,
the first Denison War Nurse - she
was actually cut on her hand and sent
home; she is still crippled to a
degree with that hand. She is almost
90 now and lives in Indianapolis.
2nd Lt.
Eileen Badgett