Two Weeks of Active Duty

Abstract

T was seven o'clock on a hot July morning when members of our army medical reserve units began pouring through every door of the main waiting room in Philadelphia's Thirtieth Street Station. There were men officers, nurse officers, and enlisted personnel, and all of us hot. We were glad, after breakfast, to find our designated places in the comfortably air-conditioned coaches which were to carry us to Camp Pickett, and two weeks of Active Duty for Training. Between Philadelphia and Washington the train stopped at two stations to add coaches of reservists. Another stop was made at Richmond, where coaches of 80th Division reservists were added. The train, which had left Philadelphia with six coaches, had now grown to twenty, all filled with reservists bound for Camp Pickett. We arrived at five o'clock on the railroad siding at the camp, where a party of officers from the camp, including the chief nurse of the army hospital, and two of her assistants, welcomed us to Camp Pickett. The vigorous music of the 80th Division Band added a fine military tone to the occasion. Busses were waiting to take us to the mess hall for supper and then to our quarters. Most of us are veterans of World War II, and we had learned to make ourselves comfortable in the living quarters of wartime foreign service. That was what we expected here. However, we accepted-with surprise but no nostalgia-our single rooms in a remodeled two-story barracks, only a short walk from the hospital. The rooms were attractively furnished, some even carpeted, and a comfortable lounge, with its own separate entrance from the outside, was located at one end of the first floor corridor. A neat card on the door of each room bore the name of the nurse who was to occupy it. Next to the lounge was the kitchen, the most used room in the house. Its equipment included a large refrigerator, an electric stove, and a generous supply of dishes and silverware. At the opposite end of the corridor from the kitchen was the laundry room, with a drying and ironing room adjoining. Bathing facilities-tubs, showers, basins-were so amply provided we never needed to take turns!