by Molly Anne Turner
Billie Benson
BONDING WITH THE VETERANS
There was one patient in particular Ms. Benson remembers. “ I made the mistake of saying I know how you feel when he was talking about how he’d been treated and he said do you really? I sad no, but I know how the mother of one of you feels.” From that point on he couldn’t wait to tell all the other guys that she had a son over there. “After that they were all so good to me. There was sort of a bond between some of the vets and me. And I appreciated that.” She explained it made it easier going to work knowing she was helping men in the same position as her son. “I felt like I couldn’t take care of my son, although he didn’t have to be hospitalized, but I could help some kids that had gone through a lot of the things he went through to. I felt very close to them and I think they felt closer to me.” Because of this bond, many of them would ask her if they could talk to her when she had time. Because they knew she was a mother of a soldier, they felt a special connection to her, which made her such a unique nurse to so many of the young soldiers. “They were sweet kids.” Even though Ms. Benson didn’t fight in the war she was a valiant part of keeping the spirit alive in the war veterans. If it weren’t for people like Ms. Benson, the war veterans wouldn’t have had fun and encouraging people to lift them up and help them heal. Ms. Benson, just like the soldiers is a war hero.
THE WAR WAS OVER
“We had gone to the movie and they had those huge movie reels and sometimes they would break. It went off and we thought it was broken and they would fix it. One of the guys came on and said the war is over! We won we won! Everybody went wild and we all ran out in the street and they danced. We kissed the boys and the boys kissed us! Everyone was so happy because we won!” All the coffee houses and bars were wide open and the streets were crowded with people celebrating that the war had ended. She remembers sitting at a bar and a gentleman was sitting beside her. “He asked me if I had seen the picture of the flag being raised at Iwo Jima that had been in the newspaper. I said yes and he said he was one of the first that raised the flag there.” Ms. Benson not only was able to witness a huge moment in history but also was surrounded by war heroes. She was able to see a time in history when soldiers and the military were praised, and also a time during the Vietnam War where the soldiers were almost spit on by the country.
A LITTLE WHITE CAP
For Ms. Bilie Benson, the war was a chance to get involved. “Everybody wanted to add to the war. They wanted to do something for the boys. I don’t think guys like to be called boys anymore but we called them boys.” As Ms. Benson was looking through a magazine she saw a nurse with a little white cap on and from that point on she knew how she wanted to help. “I wanted to wear a little white cap and be a nurse.” While visiting her aunt in St. Louis, Ms. Benson heard about a program the government had where they would pay for girls to go through cadet nurses training and then go over seas to help the boys. She decided that sounded like a great idea. She applied and was accepted to the program at Missouri Baptist and began her training. “It was the little white cap that kept me going,” she said with a large smile across her face. Before they could finish their training, the war was over. She might not have ever gotten to go over seas and see the boys, but she did get her little white cap and she got the chance to impact war veterans for years to come.
Photo provided by Ms. JoLynn Benson
Photo by to Molly Anne Turner
WORKING AS A NURSE
The VA hospital in Little Rock was built shortly after the war ended as a place for the veterans to go for care. Ms. Benson worked for years in Arkadelphia as a nurse at a few different places before heading to Little Rock. The VA Hospital in the Psych ward was her favorite place to work as a nurse because of the impact and personal relationship she was able to achieve with the veterans. Seeing them get better was something she loved about working with the psych patients. By that time in the Vietnam War, she had a son in the air force that was deployed in Thailand. Getting to work with men in the Vietnam War made it a very personal experience and something that helped her emotionally as her son was overseas fighting. “The boys were pretty precious from a couple of angles especially after he son went in.” At this point in the war, the people were giving the vets and active military a really hard time. People looked down on the war and the soldiers were not respected. “As nurses working in the VA Hospital we were trying to combat what they were saying about the vets. It was pretty personal to me because I had a son there.”
Photo provided by Ms. JoLynn Benson