JONES: Today is Tuesday, June 11th, 2024. This is an interview conducted in person at the Hartford Public Library with Army veteran Judy Thorne. Bond Pierce. The interviewer is Riley Jones, and the interview is being recorded for the Wisconsin Veteran's Museum Oral History Project. Judy, why don't you start by telling us a little bit about your early years?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: All right. I was born in a family. There were seven children, and I had a mother and a father. And we grew up initially on a farm with outdoor toilet. No running hot water. I remember a wood burning stove my mom cooked down. So setting back a little bit, it was like Old World, Wisconsin, kind of rough. We did walk to school. Not uphill both ways, but it was a mile and a half on a gravel road to a small rural Catholic school. We did have a grade school and a high school. My high school I graduated with 12 kids from a high school. Although out of seven kids, I remember telling my dad, I think I want to become a nurse someday. Now, we did back a little bit. We did move off of the farm when I was ten years old because we only rented the farm and there was just no getting ahead financially. For my parents, it was only 80 acres. At that time, you could make a living on 80 acres. Now 80 acres is almost a hobby farm. When you rent, you have to split your profit. Well, we had seven kids, and you split your profit. That leaves you pretty, pretty much with not very little money. My father was a construction worker. He knew how to lay brick and blocks, so he decided to leave the farm and to go into construction to as a mason, full time, much better income. So we moved north of Rubicon. That's the town, the little town I'm from originally Rubicon, and we moved north of that in a rural area, but not on a farm, just in a rural area. My dad built our house anyway, so the nice part was we were closer to school. We didn't have to walk quite as far, so that was a plus. But out of seven children and as we were growing up, I am the only one that went off to college and left home. The other ones are all kind of it was stayed around that area and they are still living in that area to this day. So my dad, it said to me, if you want to go to school, I can help you get in, but you have to pay me back tuition and and that sort of stuff because it wouldn't be fair to the other brothers and sisters and I that was fair. My my dad was very fair about that. So I said, all right, all right, I'll pay you back, but just give me a chance. I do want to try and see if I can make it in school and be a nurse. So I was very focused. So they took me up to find lack. I went to school in Fond du Lac and it was not all that far away. So that was that part was okay also. But I didn't have anybody to help me. You know, you have student counselors and stuff to help you when you're in high school to get into college. There was nothing. I did everything on my own. My parents never even went to high school. So I had to apply, see if I could get in and do all the stuff it takes to get into a school. So I managed it. I got in. And anyway, so then when I was a senior already in school at Marion College, the recruiters this is the middle of the Vietnam era. I started school in Fun back in 1963, and by 65, 66 they were coming to our school, the military, the army and the Air Force, and said, We will pay you already like you were a private in the military in your senior year. They said, We have never done this before, but we need nurses for Vietnam. Well, I raced up there. I couldn't wait to get my papers because it meant money. They were going to help me. I was so broke I had no money. And so I thought, I'm going to go into the military right now already, and I can have some money in my senior year. But at that time, if you were female under 21, you had to ask your mother and father's permission. They had to give consent so you could go into the military. So now I grabbed the papers from the Army recruiter. I went to them that weekend and my parents just, my God, my daughter's not going into the military. They never said why? I don't know. I've assumed it was something about a bad reputation or what? I don't know their attitude. To be honest with you. But they did not want me to. Go in the military. Now it's Sunday night. I'm going back to school. Finally, I said to Mom and dad, do you know I'm already living in a dorm? I'm out of your home. You've done the best job you could of raising me. I must have been 19 or 20 at that time. I'm what I am. What I am. You've done your best job you could. Mom looked at Dad. Dad looked at Mom and said, Yeah, we did. They signed me up. So then we had to wait. You had go to graduate and take state bar exams and then wait for the results, etc., etc.. So it took a little while. How many months before I actually got on a plane, flew to Texas to basic training at Brooke Army Medical in Fort Sam, at Sam San Antonio, Texas. That's where I went for my basic training. I'll be honest with you, it was like 6 or 8 weeks. I'm not exactly sure for basic training for all the nurses from the United States. We all go there and go through their training. So that's where I ended up going for my basic training. Then, of course, the military, they give you choices. Where would you like to be stationed? Well, me, like everybody else, I'm sure. Well, I picked how? Why? I picked all San Francisco, all the great places, the big cities that I thought would be glamorous and fun. I ended up going to Fort Sam in in Missouri Senate, Fort Sam, Leonard Wood. Leonard Wood. And they in Missouri. I ended up that was my first station of duty. Jokingly, they used to call it Little Korea. I worked there in the operating room, which I really enjoyed it. I liked it. I liked it there. But I really thought when I got out of nursing school, as most nurses feel, you're idealistic. I thought it was Florence Nightingale. I was going to save the world. I was so idealistic. So I was there for six months and I thought, gosh, I really want to go to Vietnam. So I went to whatever department it is where you can change and ask to go someplace else. I forget the name of the office. You go there and I said to them, I really want to go to Vietnam. And they said, You're not going to believe this. Right. At that time, they said, We have our enough nurses in Vietnam right now, but you can wait. And there's always openings because they're coming and going, obviously. And they said to me, there's two hardship tours. And this was in 19 it would be 1968, 67, 68, when I requested that. And they said, we have two hardship tours. One of them is Vietnam. It's 13 months and the other one is Korea. And I didn't know much about Korea. I thought, all right, I said, if Vietnam is full, then send me to Korea. So then they did. I went to Korea. I was there for all of 1968. I went the end of 67 year there for 13 months. It was the very end. And remember, shortly before Christmas, I was sent over there. So anyway, yes, I was stationed in Korea at the 43rd surgical hospital in we Jumbo Korea. So I was there for 1968 and I worked there in the operating room as well. I was the only female in the operating room. My boss was a male and I had all corpsman. I learned so much. Those corpsman get excellent training and basic training to be corpsman. I really learned a lot from them. It was it was a good job. It was fun. I enjoyed it. We did not see mass casualties. We took care of our guys. And when we had an overflow, if we had beds, enough beds available at that time, we could take in Korean people if if they needed surgery and we could do surgery on them over in Korea at that time because they were so devastated after the Korean they don't call it a war. They call it conflict, which ended in 1953. And it totally wiped out the whole peninsula right down to Pusan, all of Korea. It takes a long time to rebuild. So their country was very, very poor. There were most of the roads were still dirt roads or gravel, and it was difficult getting around anyway. So it was not easy. It was. And then we lived in in barracks like and they were black houses, so we did not live in tents like you would consider doing during a war. They were not tents. They were they were stable, but it was just black. Black. They call them hutches, but houses or barracks. And they have winter in Korea, just like we do here in the United States. So it's very, very cold. I remember going to bed with every piece of clothing I could wear, including a big winter coat, and I was still cold. We had diesel fuel heating at the hospital and but the place was cold. It was very cold in winter. So it was not an easy living conditions. But, you know, it wasn't it wasn't that bad. Vietnam was certainly far worse than what we dealt with. We did. I always remember this one Korean woman. We were told not to eat out and the economy, as they say, because people had worms, parasites in their intestinal. So anyway, I remember this one Korean woman. She comes in, she's very jaundiced by American standards. And the doctor pre-op thought this, that she probably had gall stones. Very common. They get stuck in your bile duct and your backed up your bile is what turns your your skin color. Kind of a yellowish color. But we take her to surgery, assuming we're going to do a gallbladder, we get in there, her bile ducts are plugged with parasites or worms. That's why she was jaundice. It was not stones. So it's an interesting experience. It's a different lifestyle. And I found the Korean people, though, very they were very nice. They were very good to us. They loved Americans because obviously we came in and and helped them set up a democracy so they could push back up to the DMZ, the demilitarized zone, during the war. And that's that's still where it is still there. And our men are still stationed there. And now it's it's there's always a little tension in that area, can we say? So anyway, it's very, very interesting. But that was my. So then in 1968, there after I was stationed there, I did come back home and I did move to Milwaukee and I worked at the VA Center, Woods VA in Milwaukee. I worked there for a year and a half. And then at that time we were all in the 60s. A lot of us were peace children, you know, peace, peace, this and blah, blah, blah. Well, in the medical profession, it was a big deal. We heard about it. There was a thing called the ship Hope Project Hope Hospital ship started by Dr. Welch in the 60s. He, too, had been in the service, I believe, in the Navy, and he lived in Washington, D.C. He felt so bad for the people around the world that were suffering. He was a medical doctor. He said, I think I can help people. I'm going to go to Eisenhower and see if I can get a World War two hospital ship and get all volunteers. And every year we will sail to a different poor country and we will work. We will volunteer. We'll work for nothing. Our doctors, our nurses, x ray, so and so forth. Set up a complete hospital on a ship and work for nothing. I applied to get on the ship hop. I was accepted. I got on in in in Maryland. We saved down, sailed down to Kingston, Jamaica. We lived in Jamaica. I lived there at the port. We docked and we took care of the Jamaican people. That was almost a year long service. Also, in 1971, I lived there and I volunteered a whole year and I worked for nothing. Now, when I get my Social Security, you know, they send you that yearly to tell you your status. I have a big zero because I paid nothing into Social Security for that year because I donated my whole time. When I came back, I felt, what am I going to do now? Well, I thought I got the G.I. Bill. So I went back to college again. I moved to Oshkosh, got another degree. I moved back to Aakash, and I lived there for seven years. So then I had one daughter who is an engineer, material chemical engineer at this time. And so that pretty much summarizes many of these things. Then I moved back to Hartford in 1980, and I have stayed here and lived here and worked here ever since. The end.

JONES: Wow. Very concise.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I lived in a lot of places. I've traveled around the world. I've been to every continent. I've all seven continents, including Antarctica. Yeah, I just love to travel and like to do things. I belong to probably every volunteer organization in this town, everything from the garden club. I usher at our shower theater since the day they've opened that I just. I just I'm trying to think of all the volunteer work I do at church. I volunteer, and I also teach at the rec department. I teach exercise classes that I get paid for, and I also help out at the schools when they need somebody to fill in the cafeteria for serving. If somebody is out sick. I also fill in wherever they need me working in a cafeteria at three local schools here in town. So that's a fill and temporary job when somebody's sick, better get paid for two. Those are the only two paid jobs. I work at the polling. I do poll. I also work at the election board that I get paid for, too. Yeah. I will do polling or election. I said for the election. I don't know how else to say that.

JONES: Okay. Judy, I did not interrupt because you were on a roll.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: God. I told you I could not.

JONES: What I'm going to do is I'm going to go back and ask some follow up questions about many of the things you've already covered. Okay. So in a sense, we're going to be going backwards.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I. Well.

JONES: When you were in nursing school and you decided that you wanted to go into the Army, you've already told us about your parents reaction. But had anyone else in your family served in the military?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Actually, I'll take that back. My brother did. He was a National Guard and he was called out to the state of Washington during the Cuban crisis. Yes, he is the only one of my immediate family. I had uncles that served in World War Two and Korean conflict. Actually, two uncles served in World War Two. But other than that, no women. There were no women that that I didn't even know. A woman that was a nurse. Even in Rubicon, I knew not not one nurse. So the moral of the story, without being, you know, pat myself on the back, there was no guidance, zero zero guidance. I didn't have anybody to talk to about nursing. Nobody went to college. My parents never went to high school, but they didn't hold me. Well, my father did. He thought it was silly for girls to go on to college because you only get married and then you never work again. That was his theory. My mother didn't say anything. She was a kind of woman. Years ago. You walk ten paces behind your husband going to the situation. Because he was the breadwinner and she stayed home, but she worked her buns off. If you're a farmer's wife, you work. You work yourself to death.

JONES: But it's just a different world.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Women milk the cows. And they did so much stuff. They were like hired men. Hence the reason we had five girls and we all vowed we'd never marry a farmer. And none of us did.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: No. No. It ain't happening.

JONES: Let's talk a little bit more about Fort Leonard Wood. You were there for more training, I know.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: No, that was my permanent station. No, my training. Well, no, not really. Because you go to basic for your training. And then that was my. I worked full time, just like a staff nurse. I mean. Well, I work in the operating room. I was an operating room nurse, just like. Yeah, like I'd been there five, ten years. It didn't matter. No, you're you're there.

JONES: There's a hospital at at.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Or just beautiful hospital. It wasn't even that all it was gorgeous. It was very, very nice. Very up to date. I had a major. What was her name? I loved her. My head, my head honcho, Major Christie or something. I forget her name. And she was very nice, very good to me. Except she said I shouldn't be wearing makeup. You know, I wear makeup. And she said that might fall in the wound.

JONES: How long were you at?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: At six months. I was only there for six months. But I liked it. It was good. It was good. It was a good place to. You know, everything to me was a new world because I was so naive and so sheltered in my life that I could have been in anywhere. And I would have thought it was exciting because it was different for me.

JONES: Okay. So after six months at Fort Leonard Wood, then.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: That's when I requested to go away.

JONES: Volunteered for service overseas. Correct?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Of course, you ask for Europe and they say, are you going to make the military your career? I said, How do I know? How are you telling it? I said, No, I don't know that for sure. Well, then we're not giving you Europe. You got to sign up your sign your life away to get sent, you know. So anyway.

JONES: And again, you've already covered the fact that you tried to go to Vietnam, but essentially they said no. And so you ended up in Korea.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Where they had their quota. At that time, I hate to say. They said no. They had their quota of nurses at that time when I requested it. That's maybe a better way of saying it, because they needed nurses. They still needed nurses. But, you know, there's X amount you require for. The hospitals are so. They had met their quota at that time. That's a better way of saying it. Because I don't want him to think that the military says no to you when they really did need nurses. God. I remember when I landed in Seoul. We're driving north in a jeep, and I see this dead duck on the side of the road and they're building a fire and they got the spit and the guys driving. You know, they're getting that duck ready to put on a spit they dug. I don't know anything about Korea. I'm just so naive and so sheltered. My life was so sheltered. And I'm the eat dog here, kay.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: What an eye opener.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I went back to Korea just.

JONES: To get to that. Okay. Let me. I'm trying to take this a little more chronologically.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yeah.

JONES: Okay. So when you. Initially you landed in Seoul. Seoul, correct. They sent you.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: To the 43rd surgical hospital. Where? Jumbo. That is hot. Halfway between Seoul and the DMZ. Positioned on a map roughly halfway.

JONES: Okay.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Do you know how to spell wee jumble? It's right here.

JONES: I can find it. Okay, I'll get it now. Because. I'm of the same generation as you.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I'm older than dirt. I find that hard to believe, though.

JONES: It went with this, is that I understand that the 43rd surgical hospital was the home of an a person who ended up writing a book about his experience. And of course, the book that he wrote about his experience was the basis for the movie Man Mash.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: That's right.

JONES: Later, the television series.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: That's right. I took all that out.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yup.

JONES: So because of that, you know, I understand the name of the unit was changed from the 43rd surgical hospital in the TV, in the movie and the TV show.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: No, it was not changed. It is called the 43rd Surgical Hospital. They refer.

JONES: They called it the 407700.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yes. Yeah.

JONES: Your when you were there, you had a different.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Camp Mosher, they called it. But I don't know the different number outside of the 43rd. I, I know you're right. 4077 You're correct. They did use that term, but they will they will say 43rd surgical hospital and we jambu they they do use that. And ironically, they talk about Rosie's bar right across the street. That's where I had my farewell party when I left Korea. There was a Rosie's bar there.

JONES: Now, in the course of preparing for today's interview. I knew about. I knew that you were at Camp Moser. And I Googled it.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yeah. Did you?

JONES: What happened? When I Googled it.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: What did you find out?

JONES: It's. Of course, it's long gone.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: No, it's not. Well, I bet in the back there. I told you I went to the Olympics. I went to it.

JONES: That the Olympics were in, what, 1988?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: No, no, no. Four years ago. Five years ago. Winter Olympics. Okay.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Okay.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: You know where it is. You know what it is. It's now Rock Republic of Korea. It is a rock. It is still there. They got the whole gate, Everything. I walked to the gate. It's not like gone wiped out. It's just turned over to Koreans now.

JONES: When I googled it. Yeah. I ended up finding was a guy named Stan Malcolm who was at Camp Moser in 1972, had posted a bunch of pictures. Okay. Now, granted, 1972.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: It's not that far after I was there.

JONES: You know, after you were there.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yeah.

JONES: But as I was looking at his dozens of pictures, I was struck by how Spartan.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: It is. Gosh, yes. That's a nice way. As in a.

JONES: Series of quotes. That's correct.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Well, it doesn't have Quonset hut, they call them, but. But they were black buildings.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Okay.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Just black buildings. I got pictures in here in the book I can show you. They even show the outside of of the buildings. But you're right. And then they have bingo ditches. They dig around everything because they have monsoons. They have of our hospital would have standing water in it. There'd be frogs.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Jumping around inside the buildings. God.

JONES: Okay. So when you were at camp. Moser So is this. Were you there basically for the 13 months?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yes, Correct.

JONES: And. Did you have a traditional Monday through Saturday work?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yes. Yes, we did. Yeah. And then I was on call because you had a cover in case somebody so every other weekend I was also on call.

JONES: So you had a traditional work day?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Correct.

JONES: And how many hours was that?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yeah, it was the usual. Eight.

JONES: Okay. And then was it the day the day shift basically.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Cracked in the operating room? That is generally the norm. Correct. Even at at Leonard Wood, that is the same. I worked at Leonard Wood as well.

JONES: So you were you had that traditional shift in. Correct? You were on call for.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: It depended upon. Now, Leonard Wood, of course, I can't remember how the call work there necessarily, but we had a smaller staff in Korea. So I was on call every other day and every other weekend I had to be around because you had in case something happened, you had to be available.

JONES: So at Camp Moser Let's just delve into the work day more. You were the only female, I take it, right?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I was the only female. I was like Loretta Swit.

JONES: What kind of. But what was the number of people you were working with?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Where? Gosh. I'd have to go back and look at how many I had. Probably 6 or 8 Korman. See, what you also did is you ran the operating room and it's called Central Supply. That's a sterile room. So you have to put up sterile equipment packs, not just for the operating room, but for, say, you had a wound out on the ward. So you had it like, let's say it's a warm pack. You'd open it up and it had all be sterile. You'd have four by fours, you'd have instruments and stuff in there. So the moral to the story is we ran the operating room and we ran central supply. It's called Central supply is where you do all the sterilization. Are clothing wrapping up all the anything that's sterile because at that time you didn't have disposable like you do now. Now everything's disposable at that time. We had to sterilize all our syringes and needles. We had to sharpen needles. Now everything is disposable. In that day in the 60s, everything had was was reusable and had to be re used, washed and sterilized and repackaged. So central supply in the operating room were the same team or the same people. And you have to look at how many. Corman I had about 6 or 8 of them have a picture of me with the group in here.

JONES: So since you had to sterilize everything and everything was used over and over.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Correct. Because you didn't correct.

JONES: That down for me. Is it safe to say that Did you spend half of your time sterilized?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yeah, probably. It depended upon the day. You know, if you had a lot of surgeries, then I'd have to be in the back in the operating room setting up and. And doing all that sort of stuff for the surgery and washing equipment in between. And then in the afternoon work in, in in central supply putting, wrapping all the equipment for the next day. So that was kind of up and down. It was variable. Here I am with my group. I had how many guys? Two, four? Six? Yeah. About 6 or 8 of us.

JONES: Okay. Hence pivoting away from when you were in the. Central supply room back to going back to the operating room. What were some of the standard? Days like we're. You're dealing with appendicitis?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yes. It was more of that routine kind of stuff. Believe it or not, there are a number of circumcisions we did over there. A fair amount of them. Don't ask me why the guys didn't be circumcised as as a baby.

JONES: But just as an aside on that point. I. Recently I was on a World War Two. Ship in New York City, and I was in the hospital ward and on they had a poster on the wall that dealt with. What they dealt with on the ship during the course of World War Two. And, of course, you know, there's all the war wounds. But I was just flabbergasted at the number of circumcisions.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I know it would you would think. I would have thought, of course, years ago they didn't circumcise them, many of them. Then it got to be they found out that women were getting cervical cancer because men were not circumcised. So it swung the opposite way. Then everybody got circumcised. Then I don't know what it is. If it's gone back now, back to not I'm not sure. I don't know what the trend is. Trends change as we go along. I'm not sure. Yeah, we did it a fair amount. Sometimes it was just even hygiene, personal hygiene. It was a reason. I don't know if they got I don't know if they got teased about it or not. I don't know.

JONES: So during. I mean, one of the things that just surprises me about your experience at Camp Mosher is that as an example, for comparison purposes in the movie and the TV show Mash case, there were gobs of nurses. Okay. And I'm just surprised that you were the only.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: One in the operating room. We had, well, obviously other nurses for the wards. God, yes. Yeah.

JONES: How many other nurses were at camp?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Would there have been About maybe 6 or 8 of us, roughly. Okay. Not a lot. Here are some more pictures of us. Probably. Yeah. Here's one. There's a, I'd say roughly. Maybe. Here's another one to. And three four, there's probably 5 or 6, I would say roughly. Yeah, because they had to run the other ships that, you know. PM Three different ships. Yeah.

JONES: The other nurses were working other shifts.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: But they're out on what you call the ward. So they're, they're working on the ward. I saw them back at the bill queue, you know, our barracks. But I did not work with them per se, because I didn't have to. I was the only girl in the operating room.

JONES: Okay. And again, did you volunteer to work in the operating room?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Well, ironically, not really. Not necessarily. I worked in the operating room at Leonard Wood. And when I got over there, I guess I didn't really realize where it was going to work. And I was put in the operating, which is perfect because that's what I really enjoyed the most. Even at VA in Milwaukee, I requested the operating room and I worked there in Intensive care for a while and then they had an opening in the operating. So at that time, most of my experience had been the operating room nurse at it at those times.

JONES: And again, when you were in the operating room, it was an all male environment over there?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yes. Yeah. I can show you pictures. I was the only girl I was in.

JONES: And in. In camp. Moser Is it safe to say that the composition of everyone there was 90% male?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: God, yes. Definitely. Maybe nine made me more than 90 because it was just us. Nurses were the only ones. So let's just say 6 to 6, seven of us females on a whole base.

JONES: And how many folks were at the base? I don't.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Know. It wasn't considered a big base. It was not a large base. I don't know how many have got. I'm guessing 30, 40, 50 or more.

JONES: Let's talk about what life was like with this all male environment. I assume that you and the fellow nurses were.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: My boss was a nurse. He was the only one, and the other one were all corpsman.

JONES: Okay. But I assume you were quite popular with them.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yes, I was. Yeah, but. But I got to say, I'll just say this. And speaking of locker talk as politically, sometimes we are. They respected me. I never heard foul language. They didn't. They were not gross. They treated me with respect and I treated them with respect. I never had anybody grope me, grab me, call me names, tease me. The only one that kind of picked on me and teased me was one doctor. He was like, Hawkeye, Doctor, where's Bensky? It's remote. Is he kind of picked on me. But other than that, everybody treated me with respect. Nobody was gross, Mean, teasing, Disrespectful. Zero in at that whole time? No, never did I have a problem.

JONES: And the only individual who you had a problem with was a doctor.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: He.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: A problem in a in a joking way, though.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: You know.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I. He wasn't that bad. Well, is Hawkeye bad? I don't know.

JONES: But he changed over time in the sense that when he started, his character was quite lascivious and. You know over the course of the TV show, we. He. He changed that. Okay.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: But and this this guy was he didn't needed this doctor actually didn't he wasn't foul or mean. He was more teasing. Is that a better way of saying it that none of them ever were were gross or grabbed me or did any of that? And physically. Never. Never, No.

JONES: Okay. So. Anything else that you want to tell us about your time in Korea?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Actually I in in a whole thing. I enjoyed it. For me, I needed more to do in my downtime. I took everything from photography, karate lessons, golfing lessons. A transportation was so poor. I said to people, I took the military bus. We had a military bus that you could ride for nothing. And I took it from Camp Mosher to Seoul, and it took like forever. I'm not a very patient person and the roads were narrow. And you don't make good time like in America, you know what I'm saying? So they said, Yeah, there's a helicopter place not that far away from here. Contact them. They might take you out flying. To make a long story short, I contacted them. They took me out flying. It got to the point where they called me and page me at the hospital to find out if I wanted to fly with them. Then the colonel of our whole compound, he was leaving Korea and he says, Judy, you've been flying all the time. Can you arrange a helicopter flight for me before I leave Korea? He's the colonel, for God's sakes. Then Major mentor, my head nurse when she was leaving Korea goes, Judy, you been flying all the time? Can you arrange a flight for me before I leave Korea? Here I am, a puny lieutenant. The moral to the story is it's not always what you know. Sometimes it's who you know. But I made the effort to get out there to find out what's available and what you can do, you know? So. But these people didn't. You know, I was just never satisfied. Somebody years ago told me this, and I think it's kind of true. You go to a place with the bunch of people and you see a big storm. They'll all stand there and look at it. But you will go, you'll look at it, but then you go, I wonder what's around the back of that stone. I've always been an opportunist because I came from nothing. Somebody said to me years ago, you were lucky. I said, no, I wasn't lucky. I had very little money, no backup, no no support, no encouragement. I was an opportunist. I opened doors. I thought, I wonder if they can do it. Why can't I do it? That was always my feeling. I'd see people doing stuff and they wonder if I can try that. I wonder if I can do this. I was 76 years old and I jumped out of an airplane. I tried to get my son in law and my brother in law to do it with me and nobody would do it. I went all alone. Course you bear you double parachute with people. I was 74 years old on my birthday, skiing downhill out west and broke my leg. So just get out there and keep active, keep busy, keep trying new things. The only thing I climbed Blue Mountain in Jamaica, outside that I climb mountains. So I. I always look for a new, new thing I can try or do or something. Just. It's hard to find people that want to do things like that, though. Anyway.

JONES: Pivoting back to Korea, how many times did you go to Seoul?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I don't know. How many times. Not a lot. I went there. Somebody said to me about material and shopping. I'll be honest, I'm not a big shopper. I'm not a good shopper. I suck. I don't I don't need a lot of material things to make me happy. So I went there a couple of times. I did most no, I flew most of the time to other. Like Camp Humphreys.

JONES: You take a helicopter?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yeah. It's very well at these guys that had a helicopter place not very far from Don't ask me where it was. I just knew it was a helicopter.

JONES: Great helicopter. Quite a few.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Times. My God. Almost every other weekend. Even. Let me steer it and fly it. It's more difficult than you think.

JONES: And of course, we know from the movie, the Mash movie and TV show that. The helicopters that you were in were very rudimentary.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: God, yes. You had no doors. It was little, too. Actually, you know what he did? This one guy got I don't remember his name as a pilot. He said, you want to fly up by the DMZ? I said, well, yeah, sure, why not? What the hell? He said, Here, here, you got to wear this. I can't remember what the hell it was. I don't even know an outfit I had to get into. And you have to carry a gun just in case we're shot down. My God.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: But we flew.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Up by the DMZ. He took me up there. How exciting is that?

JONES: I think it's very interesting. You know, the DMC was just in the news literally this last week.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yes. You know what they're doing.

JONES: The with the North Koreans. Yes. Ruins of trash.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: That's correct. And we're sending balloons over with fliers, brochures and fliers in it. It's almost a game. I obviously I keep my ears open because they say Korean. I go, my God. Yes, I know. I've lived there. I've been. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. Interesting.

JONES: Okay, so after you leave Korea and you. You come back to Milwaukee, what hospital was it that you were at?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I Woods in Milwaukee. At VA.

JONES: And how long were you there?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Year and a half. Way too long. In the first six months I worked in the intensive care unit. Then I was switched to the operating room there. And then I went on the ship, whole project, top hospital ship. I lived down there and worked in the operating room there. That was fun. That was a good that was a good time. You didn't make any money. But you know what? I tell people what's funny when you're having fun. You know, you can be in in the ditches somewhere. If you're at the right time with the right people, you can have so much fun. If you go to a big bazaar, big ball, big, and they're boring people and they're hoity toity, they're no fun. I'd rather be with the fun people. Generally partying somewhere would be really good.

JONES: And as you indicated, you were on that ship for almost.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Almost a year. It was a short of a year.

JONES: Among other things, you you went to Jamaica.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Kingston, Jamaica. We dock there on this ship in Kingston, Pier two, I believe it was Kingston, Jamaica.

JONES: So after your time on Project Hope. Was done. You said you came back to Oshkosh.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: No, I came. Well, I came back to Rubicon. That's originally from. And then I decided to go to guys to go get it. Yeah, I moved up there.

JONES: Okay, so you went to Oshkosh and got what now? The nursing.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Degree. I got a bachelor's degree in psychology.

JONES: Okeydoke. And so after you get the degree in Oshkosh, I know you've got a daughter in there, but what do you do for a living?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I worked as a registered nurse the whole time. Yeah, I always worked. I had three months off when I had my daughter. That was it. Out of all those years, did.

JONES: You work as an hour in?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I worked at Mercy Hospital in Oshkosh. And then for three years I worked at a nursing home up there when she was after she was born. See, this is how it was for nurses. They gave you six weeks off and they wouldn't guarantee your job back. I said I went three months off. I've waited long enough to have my child. They said, Well, we can't guarantee you a job back. I said, You know what? I said, Well, screw you. I'll get a job. I'm a nurse. So I worked in a nursing home for three years when my daughter was little.

JONES: So. Before you moved back to Hartford in 1980, when you moved back to Hartford, did you continue nursing?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: God, yeah. I worked in the emergency room out here at her for that little for ten years. And then you're the only R.N. and an aide. You have no doctor. You have to call the doctor at the clinic. You have to call them. And so I pulled people in that lot twice, pulled people out of cars to do CPR right on the pavement outside. And, you know, you do the diagnosing.

JONES: So when you add up all of your nursing experience, how many years total did were you a nurse?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I was a registered nurse at 21, 69. A lot. 48 years. I worked as an hour and 48 years.

JONES: It's a long time.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I retired at 69. Finally, I walked out because they wrote me up for something and I thought it was unfair. Should have reported him tortious, what it should have done. So I said, That's it. I quit and I'm done. To hell with you. Screw you. Sort of like when. When they tell you you only have six weeks for 50, you know, because I'll just say doctors are generally men and women were the nurses. So you get screwed over once again by men. They tell you what to do. I was raised Catholic and the pope would tell women, you've got to have 9000 kids. You got to multiply. And like a rat, you just some man in Rome is telling you this bullshit. Can you see why I'm single? I say if you don't tell me what to do. No, I. No, no, no, it doesn't. It doesn't work very well. I'm very independent and I love my life anyway.

JONES: Let's talk about you going back to South Korea.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I did. For the Winter Olympics. What the hell year would it have been? Would that be 4 or 5 years ago? Now you have the summer. We're doing it every four years.

JONES: So that was about five years ago.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Would have been five years ago. Yes. I told my family, I am going to take you back to Korea because I want you to see where I lived. And we're all downhill world skiers. And so that was a perfect time to.

JONES: Take your daughter with you.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: My daughter, son in law and two grandchildren. Because we all downhill ski. Yes. So that's why we went because it was Olympics. It's winter. We're skiers. And it was in Korea, and I live there. So that was that.

JONES: And while you were there, you visited Carlos.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: We try. And this is what we did. Yes. We went back there and I had my book with me and I showed them pictures. I said, I lived here. I lived here. Can I get in there? That's why I know it was a brac. And they said no. They meet you at the gate with big, big rifles, you know, and you cannot enter. I said, come on, come on. So we kind of peeked. You know, they have the big arches. It's military drive in through jeeps, so it's big and wide arches. So basically all we could do is see a little bit. But you can't see much. No, I couldn't get it.

JONES: Okay.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I don't know how legally I should have done more homework. I didn't think it would have been. I thought Americans still own it and I can just walk in and check on the place.

JONES: So it's now not by the U.S.?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: No, it's called Rock Republic of Korea.

JONES: It's Korean government runs it now.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Correct. It's their post, whether they bought it from us or we. So I don't know that. I don't know how they get I don't know the background of the logistics of that. But yes, they own it. Koreans know. Anyway. Yeah, it's. It's kind of interesting. It's. It's kind of too bad. But that was that. So then we tried to look for Rosie's bar and we couldn't even find that anymore. So I don't know.

JONES: Of Rosie's bar. I told you earlier that I saw this series of pictures posted by this guy from 1972. And one of the pictures had a very basic sign that said. Is it said ROVs are OSCE. Okay. But somehow that was. Translated into roses.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: You know, it's interesting because now you can Google everything and I son and daughter and they do everything online. And he tried Googling it. And my son, a son in law, did. And even at that time, how did he say, I can't remember. We couldn't find it anyway. I mean, you can go online because we took the bullet train. This is what we did. My daughter made the arrangements. We went from Seoul, one side, the west side of Korea. We took the bullet train, went a total across all. It's just a peninsula across the. Because we wanted to stay in a typical Korean hotel the first night. So I said to my son in law, how fast do we go? And he goes online and you can see how fast we're going. I think it was 180 some odd miles on the bullet train. Then you can go online and you can say something to it and it'll translate into Korean. So what we did, because we just would say something into our handheld, you know, our iPhone and then it would do translated into Korean. Then we just show it to the people and we could do it. You know, nowadays with technology, it's just so amazing. My God. Anyway, so that's what we did.

JONES: And one more thing about these pictures from 1972. I told you that there were about 3000 pictures. And I'm just going to read off some of what the pictures showed. There were Quonset hut, fencing dogs and officers Club, Rosie's bar, volleyball court and a basketball field. And rats.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Could be. Where the frogs. I don't remember the rats. I remember frogs during monsoons. They would jump in our showers. And even when we walked it, when you walked into the hospital, it was the outpatient department. And it was always standing water during monsoon. And there would be frogs. I don't remember. There probably were rats. They scurry. Who knows? I didn't see any and I don't remember them like nibbling on me in the middle of the night or anything like that. I don't know that. So I. I can't. I can't say anything about rats. We did have a volleyball court right outside of the Officers club because I used to play volleyball all the time. I loved it. And I was in the officers club because I'm a very social person practically every day, just chewing the rag with the guys. How is your day? Blah, blah blah blah, blah. So I yeah, I frequented the officers club a lot. Yeah. In the library because I was a big reader. And yeah, I tried to keep myself occupied because, you know, there's no TV and like, music and stuff, you know? You know, now everybody's got TVs in every room and music going and there was none of that. So you don't have any input from the outside world. Ironically, when I lived in Milwaukee, I dated this guy and there were some song came on the radio and I, I was totally unaware of it because I was out of the world. And he said something to me like, real nasty, like, you don't even, you know, I thought, okay, that's my last date with it. I said, But I lived in Korea for a year. Do you know what that you know, they have no clue. So he was already an asshole? By my estimation. I didn't like him. That was the end of that date. So he's narrow minded and stupid.

JONES: Okay. You mentioned this earlier, but. Here in Hartford. I know you've like Mark, marched in military parades.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I do? Yeah. I belong to the Legion.

JONES: Okay. Tell tell us about that.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yeah. Many of the guys, and especially one from our church found out that I had been in the military, and they kept saying, Why don't you join the Legion? And I said, First of all, I ask him how many girls are in there? And I can't remember what the answer was. It doesn't matter. Finally, I joined a thing called the Auxiliary, right? And I joined that because the one woman that ran it belonged to my exercise. She was in my exercise class. I went in there and it was the she was the president, the vice president and the secretary. There's nobody nobody came to the meetings. Well, I only belonged to that for maybe a year or two because it was then dissolved because nobody anyway. So I thought, well, I'm I'm a veteran. And then they said to me, why are you with the auxiliary when you're a veteran? You're supposed to be in our group. So I thought, All right, all right, all right. Let me go and I'll go and see what it's like. And so anyway, that was, what, two years ago? So then I started marching in their parade, and I still belong to it. And I just did KP duty this past week.

JONES: But did you join the.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Very good. Legion.

JONES: The American.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Legion. Yeah.

JONES: What year?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: God. I don't know. Is it two years? It's over two years now.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Okay.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Roughly two years. Because then. Then they want. They wanted me. Why aren't you marching our parade? Well, then that's all right. So then they gave me a flag to even carry. So that's. I'm up in front. As a matter of fact, just with a not this past parade, but one or so I overheard somebody say in the crowd, my gosh, there's even a woman marching with them because it was always men in this small town. No, I've never seen a woman march before. I thought, my God, I'm going to get out there and do this stuff. So then jokingly I said, you should let me carry a gun. Let's just come on, let the women carry the gun. So he then what? They're really good. They're good sports. They used to go all right, But then he did. He gave me the gun. I said, Holy crap, this kind of heavy. Maybe I'll just carry that flag. Anyway, so anyway, they even let me shoot it off at somebody's funeral one time and everything said, You better hurry up and give me some some lessons. And how they say don't shoot you guys. So anyway, you know, they're good sports.

JONES: One time you were part of the honor guard.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Well, I don't know how you carry a flag. I don't know. They do call it the honor guard revolution.

JONES: Dressed in a uniform.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: They said I could wear just a white top and a black bottom. Yeah. And my a military hat of some sort. So I have which I have multiple months of those. I don't think I can get into my uniform, to be honest with you, which is really funny. At that time, you go, I'm so fat when you're young, you know, Now I go, my God. The epic. I guess I am. You don't realize it. Anyway, the fat very comes in the middle of the night as you age anyway. But in comparison, I'm not happy when I see some people, so I guess it's all right.

JONES: Well, Judy, is there anything that I have not asked you about that you would like? Talk about? I know we're going to go through. I'll look at the book and stuff that you have, but we can't really.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: No, I know.

JONES: Do that while we're recording.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I can't think of anything else that. That kind of summarizes my active duty. I did. Maybe I should add. I did stay in the reserves for about six months when I moved to Milwaukee when I got back. But we met with it every Monday. It was a considerable amount of time and I would get so tired after work and have a meeting then. Then they wanted me to work with the corpsman at the local hospitals. The moral of the story is I only stayed about six months and I did not enjoy it. It's not like active military. The active I enjoyed.

JONES: Well.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I can't think of anything else that I haven't touched.

JONES: And I want to thank you for several things. First and foremost. I was. I told you at the outset I was very excited to do this interview because I had a rough idea of your age. And I said to myself rhetorically, Holy cow. Okay. This woman served in the U.S. Army. Way. You know, she was a trailblazer in that respect because there were so few women.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: There weren't a lot. Yeah.

JONES: In the military.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Even when they came to our school. Not that many joined. Yeah.

JONES: And you were a trailblazer. And I want to recognize that. And thank you for your service to our country. Secondly, I also want to say thank you for agreeing to sit down and do this interview. As I told you, I think that. You know, one of the things that will happen is this interview is read and is preserved for posterity. And at some point, somebody who's interested will be able to to look up your story and to see you'll see what a trailblazer you were. So. Again, thank you for saying yes to the interview.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: You're welcome. I'm glad to do that. Actually, my name is also in the Arlington Women's Memorial in Arlington Cemetery.

JONES: Let's hear the story about you were going to go to Washington, D.C.. To visit because.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I've been there multiple times to do.

JONES: I thought you were going to go on an honor flight.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: I was.

JONES: Tell us about that.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yes. Channel 12 came out to interview me because I was going to go on the 50th honor flight. Actually, when they called me initially the first time around to tell me that I was selected, I said they said, Will you need I answered my phone. And I happened to be at Little Switzerland, downhill skiing. And they said, Do you need a wheelchair? Do you need all this? I said, I just told you I was at little Switzerland skiing. I'm there right now as I'm talking to you. So anyway, he chuckled. He said, I guess you won't need a wheelchair. Shortly after that, I went out west skiing and I fell and broke my leg on my 74th birthday. So I got home and I called Flight for Life and I said, you know, I remember you asked me if I need a wheelchair. Yeah, Now I need a wheelchair. So anyway, that was going to be the 50th. My daughter was going to fly out as my person. That's with you when she was being when they have to go and meet before you fly out. They called her up and said, We're canceling your mother. She cannot go because she broke her leg. So I was quite upset about it, quite frankly. Years later, I ask another orthopedic surgeon and he said there was no reason to cancel you. You should have been gone. But whatever it was, water over the dam. So I did go on the 51st flight, on her flight to Washington, D.C.. I would have to add another story. I did need the wheelchair because I had to have a splint on my leg. It was splinted from my ankle all the way up to the hip. And I thought I said to my daughter, What am I going to do? You got to have some story to go with this. So you got to gauge your audience. So this guy comes up to me. He was on the flight with me and he was out we were out in Washington at the time. And he says, What happened to you? And I said, Yeah, old Army Army wound old injury from the service. Then I paused a moment and I said, No, I actually fell off of a barstool. Then I paused a moment and I said, No. I actually was downhill skiing by this time because my age.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: You did it.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: And it really was downhill skiing. Anyway, so I did get to go on the 51st.

JONES: Okay, so what year was that? Approximately.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: My God. Because they're up to how many are ready? Let's. My 74th birthday and I'm 79. It's five years ago.

JONES: So five years ago?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Yeah. Yeah. You can't engage your audience when you're talking to them and tell me, you know, some people are stodgy. The guy kind of just looked at me and he was kind of at the mall bag.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: What's your target.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Anyway? Yeah. So so I did get to go out there, but I also went out when they donated I donated to the Woman's Memorial in Arlington. There is a memorial just to women who have been in the service.

JONES: Is it at the military?

THORBAHN-PIERCE: It's in Arlington by the cemetery, right at the entrance as you go in. I donated to it. And let's see, in the 80s sometime they had a big ceremony, dedication. So I went out there at that time, too. And so if you go in there and you know my maiden name, you, I am listed in there also.

JONES: And this is what's the title of that monument? Yeah.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: It's not it's not the Vietnam. It's just a woman's woman's. Veteran memorial, I believe, is what it's termed. Just for women who are veterans that was dedicated to set the entrance to Arlington. Cemetery, park. Whatever that whole thing is, it's close to the eternal flame. Kennedy's eternal flame, actually.

JONES: Okay. Judy, thank you very.

THORBAHN-PIERCE: Much. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for asking me.