In-person & Virtual Event

Speaker: Retired Decorated Captain Catherine “Kay” Bauer US Navy

Topic: Skies over Vietnam – Oral History Project

Join the meeting via Zoom anytime after 10:30 am (US Central Time).

Kay Bauer grew up with her thirteen brothers and sisters in St. Paul.  She earned her four-year nursing degree from the College of St. Catherine.  The Navy Nurse Corps paid for her final year of nursing school, and Kay received her commission upon graduating in 1959.  After spending a number of years nursing for the Navy, Kay requested assignment to Vietnam and arrived there in January 1966.  She was part of a Forward Surgical Team assigned to a Vietnamese provincial hospital in Rach Gia, in southernmost South Vietnam.  She worked closely with her colleagues, both American and Vietnamese, in a hospital that had no running water or air conditioning.  She remained in the Navy after she returned from Vietnam in early 1967, dedicating thirty-five years of her life to the military.  Kay was instrumental in forming the nurses PTSD support group and is fondly referred to as “the Admiral” by her sister veterans.