Barbara Jean Nichols, a graduate of Everett General Hospital School of Nursing, helped build Boeing warplanes during World War II and served as a nurse in the Korean War and in Vietnam. Now 95, she is featured in a Legacy Washington exhibit in Olympia. (Brian Zylstra / Office of Secretary of State)

Barbara Jean Nichols, a graduate of Everett General Hospital School of Nursing, helped build Boeing warplanes during World War II and served as a nurse in the Korean War and in Vietnam. Now 95, she is featured in a Legacy Washington exhibit in Olympia. (Brian Zylstra / Office of Secretary of State)

Army nurse from Everett has vivid memories of ‘forgotten war’

Barbara Jean Nichols, 95, served near the front lines in Korea and Vietnam, and in Germany.

Picture a Korean War veteran, one who received a battlefield promotion in the face of harsh conditions and dangers. Or picture someone who dealt with the gruesome realities of war in Vietnam. The image that comes to mind isn’t likely to resemble Barbara Jean Nichols.

She is 95 years old, and not quite 5 feet tall. In tennis shoes, she seems the picture of a spry great-grandmother who kept the home fires burning during wartime. Nichols, though, is a retired Army lieutenant colonel who traveled the world to serve her country and provide life-saving care.

Her service as an Army nurse took her close to the front lines in Korea and Vietnam, and to Germany and the old Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. At Walter Reed, she once helped take former President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the presidential suite.

“I got to meet Mamie,” Nichols said Monday.

By phone from Lacey, where she lives in the Panorama retirement community, Nichols spoke of her wartime experiences. During World War II, she bolted nose cones onto B-17 bombers at a Boeing assembly line in Seattle. From 1945 to 1947, as part of the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, she studied at Everett General Hospital School of Nursing and Everett Junior College. She was class valedictorian when she earned her nursing credentials in 1947.

Nichols, who has rarely shared what it was like to care for battlefield casualties, is now highlighted as part of an historical exhibit in Olympia, “Korea 65: The forgotten war remembered.”

“This is the first time it’s really been shared,” Nichols said.

Among her quotes in the exhibit is one that hints at what she continues to live with: “When you’re doing your job as a nurse or doctor, you have to stay calm. When it bothers you is later. It’s the memories that won’t go away. It catches up to you.”

Presented by Legacy Washington, the Korean War exhibit opened last week in the lobby of the Secretary of State’s Office on the second floor of the Capitol Building. It will be on view until July 2018, said Brian Zylstra, a spokesman with the Secretary of State’s Office. The nonprofit Legacy Washington documents stories of people and events in state history. Collaborators include the Washington State Library, Washington State Archives and heritage organizations.

During the Korean War, Nichols became chief nurse at the U.S. Army’s 3rd Field Hospital on the outskirts of Pusan. By 1951, she was helping oversee more than 10,000 patients, many of them prisoners of war. “They were human beings,” she said of the Korean POWs.

She remembers personal hardships. “There was no adequate food. The rations were terrible, so old, and lots of leftovers from World War II,” she said. For laundry, she said she washed her underwear “and everything else” in her helmet.

Her parents, the late Bernard and Esther Nichols, lived in Everett in 1952 when The Everett Herald reported Nichols had received her captain’s bars while in Korea.

It was 1965 when she arrived in Vietnam. “The equipment was better than Korea, but the wounds were worse,” she said. “We got them right off the battlefield, and sent them to a hospital in Japan.”

Nichols, who earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam and retired in 1969, can’t shake the memory of a man injured by a rocket launcher. “It hit him in the belly. The wounds he had, it just haunts me,” she said. That man did not survive.

She remembers cutting clothes off the men brought in with injuries. “That’s where we got Agent Orange,” Nichols said. Affected by the herbicide, she suffers from peripheral neuropathy and other health issues, and receives compensation because of 90 percent combat disability.

John Hughes, Legacy Washington’s chief historian and former editor and publisher of The Daily World newspaper in Aberdeen, wrote profiles about eight of the 13 people featured in “Korea 65,” including Nichols.

“I knew that nurses in Korea were really close to the front lines,” Hughes said. In doing his research for the exhibit, “I cast my net and found this little tiny amazing woman in Panorama City. Barbara Nichols is an absolutely remarkable American woman.”

With an interest in genealogy, Nichols has traced her ancestry to the 1600s. She learned she is a descendant of John Howland, who fell overboard but was rescued during the 1620 voyage of the Mayflower. Her family’s military service, she said, dates back to the American Revolution.

Nichols is grateful for the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, created by the Bolton Act in 1943, which paid for her nursing training.

Hughes got a kick out of her reaction when he asked about “M*A*S*H,” the TV series based on a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean War. She told him she was way too busy for the antics of the fictional characters.

“I see a little humor in it now,” Nichols said when reminded Monday of the show’s Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan. “We didn’t have all the fun they had,” she said.

Sixty-five years after her Korean War service, missile testing by North Korea is no laughing matter. At the United Nations on Tuesday, President Donald Trump vowed to “totally destroy North Korea” if it threatened the United States or its allies.

“I hope there isn’t war,” Nichols said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Herald writer Jerry Cornfield contributed to this story.

Korea 65 exhibit

Legacy Washington’s “Korea 65: The forgotten war remembered” exhibit is in the lobby of the Secretary of State’s Office on the second floor of the Capitol building in Olympia. See it online at www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/Korea65.

Read Legacy Washington Chief Historian John Hughes’ profile of Barbara Jean Nichols at https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/legacy/barbara-nichols.pdf.

Talk to us

More in Local News

The Safeway store at 4128 Rucker Ave., on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, in Everett, Washington. (Mike Henneke / The Herald)
Police: Everett Safeway ex-worker accused of trying to ram customers

The man, 40, was showing symptoms of psychosis, police wrote. Officers found him circling another parking lot off Mukilteo Boulevard.

Lynnwood Mayor Christine Frizzell speaks during a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of the 196th ST SW Improvement Project near the 196th and 44th Ave West intersection in Lynnwood, Washington on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Jarred by anti-Semitic rants, Lynnwood council approves tax increase

Three people spewed hate speech via Zoom at a council meeting this week. Then, the council moved on to regular business.

The county canvassing board certifies election results at the Snohomish County Auditor’s Office in Everett, Washington on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023.  (Annie Barker / The Herald)
General election results stamped official by canvassing board

In Snohomish County, one hand recount will take place. Officials said ballot challenges were down this year.

The Days Inn on Everett Mall Way, which Snohomish County is set to purchase and convert into emergency housing, is seen Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Over $130M for affordable housing set to be approved by County Council

The five-year investment plan of the 0.1% sales tax aims to construct 550 new affordable units.

Two snowboarders head up the mountain in a lift chair on the opening day of ski season at Stevens Pass Ski Area on Friday, Dec. 2, 2022, near Skykomish, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ski season delayed at Stevens Pass due to minimal snow

Resort originally planned to open Dec. 1. But staff are hopeful this week’s snow will allow guests to hit the slopes soon.

Siblings Qingyun, left, and Ruoyun Li, 12 and 13, respectively, are together on campus at Everett Community College on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, in Everett, Washington. The two are taking a full course load at the community college this semester. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Siblings, age 12 and 13, are youngest students at EvCC campus

Qingyun Li was 11 when he scored a perfect 36 on the ACT test. His sister, Ruoyun, was one point away.

Edmond’s newly elected mayor Mike Rosen on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Mayor-elect Rosen wants to ‘make Edmonds politics boring again’

Mike Rosen handily defeated incumbent Mayor Mike Nelson. He talked with The Herald about how he wants to gather the “full input” of residents.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Traffic cameras, and tickets, come to Edmonds; Mukilteo could be next

New school zone cameras in Edmonds will begin operating in January. Mukilteo is considering enforcement cameras as well.

A suspected gas explosion on Wednesday destroyed a house in the 19700 block of 25TH DR SE in Bothell, Washington. (Snohomish Regional Fire & Rescue)
After a newly bought Bothell house exploded, experts urge caution

The owners had closed on their purchase of the house just two days earlier. No one was hurt in the explosion.

Lynnwood
3 men charged in armed home invasion near Everett

Prosecutors allege the trio targeted other Asian American homes across Snohomish, Whatcom and King counties.

Team members prep for the upcoming ski season at Stevens Pass Resort in Skykomish, Washington on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023.  (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Any day now: All eyes on snow forecast at Stevens Pass

The ski area was a flurry of activity this week, as staff made sure a new lift and app were running smoothly.

Everett
Carjacking suspects tracked via GPS from Everett to Renton, then arrested

A King County resident reported two people stole their Mercedes at gunpoint. Hours later, its GPS tracker pinged in north Everett.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.