Short Skirts and Snappy Salutes: A Woman's Memoir of the WWII Years

Caroline Morrison comes of age during the turbulent war years of the 1940s. The attack on Pearl Harbor shatters the illusion that young women should lead sheltered and protected lives, and women realize they must help the war effort. Caroline is no exception. A civil service exam she takes as a class assignment in her senior year of college leads to an internship in hospital dietetics at Walter Reed Army Medical Center followed by a commission as second lieutenant in the Medical Corps. September 1944 begins a year of intense training and long hours at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C. Tension and excitement grip the city and the crowded hospital. Caroline finds herself involved in the lives of soldiers severely wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, supervises General Pershing's meals, encounters the fury of General Patton, and sees the spirits of patients lifted by visits from Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt. During Lt. Morrison's colorful army career, she helps paralyzed patients, works with German prisoners, and even receives a proposal for marriage from an Eskimo private. With warmth and humor, Caroline Morrison Garrett describes her adventures and reflects on how events and people shaped her life.