WWII nurses who dodged bullets and saved lives deserve Congressional honor, lawmakers say

Eighty years after the war ended, a coalition of retired military nurses and others is campaigning to award one of the nation’s highest civilian honors,

DANVILLE, Calif. — At age 106, Alice Darrow can clearly recall her days as a nurse during World War II, part of a pioneering group that dodged bullets as they hauled packs full of medical supplies and treated the burns and gunshot wounds of troops.

Some nurses were killed by enemy fire. Others spent years as prisoners of war. Most returned home to quiet lives, receiving little recognition.

Darrow sat with patients, even after-hours. One of them had arrived at her hospital on California’s Mare Island with a bullet lodged in his heart. He was not expected to survive surgery, yet he would change her life.

“To them, you’re everything because you’re taking care of them,” she said, sitting at her home in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Danville.

Eighty years after the war ended, a coalition of retired military nurses and others is campaigning to award one of the nation’s highest civilian honors, the Congressional Gold Medal, to all nurses who served in WWII. Other groups, such as the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII and the real-life Rosie the Riveters, have already received the honor.