Maria Ortiz First Army Nurse KIA Since Vietnam

[babylonsister]

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2007/08/maria_ortiz_first_army_nurse_kia_since_vietnam/

Maria Ortiz First Army Nurse KIA Since Vietnam
James Joyner | Friday, August 10, 2007

The Army has buried the first nurse killed in combat since the Vietnam War.

Capt. Maria I. Ortiz was buried yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery, nearly a month after she was killed in the Green Zone in Baghdad, the first Army nurse to die in combat since the Vietnam War. Ortiz, 40, of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, was killed July 10 by enemy fire, the Defense Department reported. She was caught in a mortar attack while returning from physical training.

{…}

Ortiz volunteered to go to Iraq, leaving in September after 18 months as the chief nurse at the Kirk U.S. Army Health Clinic at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. “She really felt that while what she was doing here was important, she felt as though she needed to go over there, because she wanted to take care of our soldiers and the people of Iraq and the coalition soldiers,” said Wanda Schuler, who worked with Ortiz at the Kirk clinic.

A sad milestone. Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, the Army’s acting surgeon general, attended the funeral and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine issued an executive order to fly the state’s flags at half staff.

As an awkward aside under the circumstances, MG Pollock is a nurse. How can a nurse be the surgeon general, giving orders to doctors? (Indeed, it’s always struck me as odd that nurses can rise above the rank of captain and thus be paid more and senior to board certified MDs.)

[AnneD]

1. Long before the debate about women in the combat zone....

Nurses went into combat to , providing aid and comfort to anyone that crossed their path. The rewards, recognition, and even compensation were slow if they came at all. Many suffered PTSS from there service in silence-with little help (Florence Nightingale is believed to have suffered PTSS).

But it is not just combat. How may of you are are that many of those 'firefighters' that were first responders at the WTC were also RN's. At least 11 were RN's. Try this site.

http://www.countryjoe.com/nightingale/index.html

[TwilightGardener]

2. A grateful salute to a fellow RN--rest in peace.

on edit--as far as the nurse rank question goes, nurses in the military can outrank MD's in terms of MILITARY (non-medical) matters. A nurse can be a full-bird Colonel, an MD can be a Lt. Colonel--the nurse thus outranks the MD. In medical situations, however, only a doctor (or nurse practitioner or PA) gives medical orders.