What Happened in History: Browse Historical Facts on Kudos 365

General Dwight D. Eisenhower presents the first ever permanent Army commission assigned to a woman to Florence Aby Blanchfield to become a Lieutenant Coronel in the US Army. The presentation took place two days after the passage of the Army-Navy Nurse Act, which allowed Nurses to gain permanent commissioned-officer status. Blanchfield was United States Army Colonel and superintendent of the Army Nursing Corps. She was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945, and the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Red Cross in 1951
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