When Duty Called Even Grandma Had to Go

A 47 year-old Catholic nurse, wife, mother and grandmother from Ohio joined the Army Reserves in 1990 to obtain an advanced degree. Only a few months later she and her fellow medics found themselves deployed to Saudia Arabia to serve in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. This is her story. It is a story of questions and hardships, of emotional highs and lows and of the stress that war put on her religious faith.

The medics came from all walks of life and age groups. They were thrown together in the most inhospitable of conditions. They had to learn quickly how to create makeshift tented hospitals in the desert.

They were under constant threat of attack and had to function whilst wearing heavy, charcoal lined suits, boots, gas-masks and gloves to protect against chemical weapons. Showers were a rare luxury; exhaustion the most common condition. Patients were from both sides of the conflict, and language and cultural differences complicated the treatment of enemy prisoners.

Coming home and adjusting to life in Middle America again was not easy. This book tells it how it was in the 1990s-an interesting and gripping story that will not be far removed from present day experiences in Iraq.