Preparing for war: lessons learned from U.S. Army flight nurses of World War II

The combat posture of today's military forces, and more specifically the emphasis on medical readiness for members of the health care professions, shows that the involvement of flight nurses in armed conflict cannot be ruled out. As part of a larger study of how military nurses cope with war, 25 former U.S. Army flight nurses of World War II were interviewed to learn how they coped with wartime situations they perceived as taxing or exceeding their resources. The purpose of this paper is to describe those aspects of wartime nursing that flight nurses interviewed would like to have been different and, subsequently, what advice they would offer today's flight nurses. The responses are examined within the theoretical framework of stress, appraisal, and coping developed by Lazarus and colleagues.