Print this article

E-Mail this article

 

Nurse heroes run clinics for the poor, hold dying babies when no family members can be with them and volunteer at health fairs and church clinics despite their busy schedules.

And there are nurse heroes-like Verdell Marsh, Ph.D., RN, CCRN-who are ready at any moment to go where their country sends them.

"Being in the Army Reserve means being able to serve my country and being there when I'm really needed," said Marsh, a lieutenant colonel at the Army Reserve 94th General Hospital in Seagoville, Texas, and a staff nurse and educator at the VA North Texas Health Care System in Dallas.

Marsh has served in the Reserve for 24 years. She spends one weekend a month training and two weeks a year at a military base in various parts of the country. During Desert Storm, she was called up and sent to work in a hospital in Germany.

In 1990, Marsh received a call at 3 a.m. and was told she was on what the Army called a "grazing herd alert." Then, at her training session that weekend, she and her fellow reservists were told they were on a "rolling bull"-they were being called to action.

Marsh did not know what to expect or where she might be headed. "We weren't sure if we were going to Saudi or if we were going to go somewhere in Europe," she said. Her mother and sister cried as they helped her get her things together. Marsh didn't worry for herself. She felt she was prepared; this was what she had trained for.

"The thing I thought about was that caring for young troops could be pretty emotional, especially if they were young guys who had severe injuries," she said. She also had heard stories from nurses who served in the Vietnam War who cared for people they knew wouldn't survive.

Fortunately, in Germany, the only casualties she saw were minor-a few shrapnel wounds. She spent a lot of time caring for family members. After the war, many reservists she served with got out. They had never expected to be called up, she said. Some had relationships that didn't survive the strain or separation.

But Marsh decided to stay in. She liked the education and training opportunities the Army offered. She liked meeting people from around the country. Her father and aunts had served in the military and she had thought about joining the Army when she graduated from high school. After two years of work in a VA hospital, inspired in part by the patients there, she joined the Reserve.

"I just think that it's been a really rewarding experience for me," she said. Now, knowing that she might be called up at any time, Marsh does not regret her decision. "I see a lot of people waving flags and I feel really honored because I wear the uniform," she said. "I think I feel more secure than people who haven't had this training."

If anything, she feels calmer this time because she's been through it. "It could just be my coping mechanism. I feel like I'm prepared to go if I need to go," Marsh said. "I'm more ready this time than last time."