Geraldine Lillian Edwards Boock |
Geraldine "Jerry" Boock in uniform | World War II, 1939-1946
Army Nurse Corps
Fort Lewis, Washington (basic training); "Torency" General Hospital, Palm Springs, California; 142 General Hospital, Calcutta, India; Fort Dix, New Jersey; "McCormack" General Hospital, Pasadena, California
First Lieutenant
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Geraldine "Gerry" Boock graduated from nursing school in 1944, and she and several of
her classmates decided to join the war effort. One of her friends volunteered the two of
them for overseas duty, and after six weeks at sea, she landed in Calcutta, where she
worked with patients wounded or taken ill in the China-Burma-India Theater. She wasn't
immune to an occasional bout of dysentery; she also encountered a shifty snake charmer,
and, on a moonlight visit to the Taj Mahal, an amorous British soldier. After the war
ended, she stayed on in India until spring 1946 and in the Army until December of that
year. Her last assignment was in a California hospital obstetrics ward, as different an
experience as possible from her sojourn in India.
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