The primary Black lady to hitch the U.S. Military Nurse Corps after the navy was desegregated within the Nineteen Forties has died. She was 104.
Nancy Leftenant-Colon, who retired as a serious and died earlier this month at a New York nursing residence, was remembered by relations and mates for quietly breaking down racial obstacles throughout her lengthy navy profession.
Often known as “Lefty,” she was one in all six siblings who served within the navy, together with a brother who was a famed Tuskegee Airmen pilot. He was killed in a mid-air collision over Austria in 1945, in line with a biography of Leftenant-Colon on the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. web site. His stays have by no means been discovered.
“She was just an awesome person,” her nephew Chris Leftenant instructed The Related Press. “She never created waves when she was doing all this first this, first that. She never made a big thing of it. It was just happening.”
After the navy was desegregated in 1948, Leftenant-Colon initially joined the all-Black 332nd Fighter Group, as a nurse. She then joined the U.S. Air Pressure after the 332nd Fighter Group was disbanded, supporting the Korean and Vietnam wars.
She arrange hospital wards in Japan, helped evacuate French Legionnaires from Vietnam and was on the the primary medical evacuation flight into Dien Bien Phu, the place greater than 70 years in the past the French colonial military was defeated by Vietnamese troops. She retired as a chief nurse in 1965, in line with the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. web site.
From there, she served as a college nurse at Amityville Memorial Excessive Faculty in New York from 1971 to 1984, recognized, in accordance to a faculty district launch, for her line “The sky is the limit.” The library media middle has been named in her honor.
She additionally was the primary lady elected to the presidency of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc., serving from 1989 to 1991. In 2007, President George W. Bush introduced the Congressional Gold Medal, the best civilian award given by Congress, to the Tuskegee Airmen as a bunch.
“She led the way, and she kept all the doors open doors behind,” Chris Lefenant mentioned. “She was just the first one. But then she made it whenever and wherever possible for someone else to follow behind.”
Suffolk County Legislator Jason Richberg, who introduced Leftenant-Colon with a proclamation in 2022, recalled her as a “firecracker.”
“It was a truly an honor to sit with her,” he mentioned. “She was unapologetically her, which was awesome. She was authentic. She was humble. She was direct in her wants and needs. She always told great stories of her time her family.”
Like Chris Lefenant, Richberg mentioned he remembered that she wasn’t one to focus on her important accomplishments. “She was humble about her history. She said ‘I was doing my part.’ As much a hero she is to her family, she wanted everyone to know you can do more,” he mentioned.
Leftenant-Colon was born in Goose Creek, South Carolina, in 1920. Certainly one of 12 youngsters, she was the granddaughter of a freed slave. Her household left the South for Amityville, New York, in 1923 — and that’s the place she died Jan. 8.
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