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In 1968, Lois Gay carried money from seven countries in small pouches with her so she had a little cash for whichever country she found herself in. Gay was a flight nurse in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. During her time in Asia, she and her team logged over 1,000 flight hours, which she called a pretty good average for the time. Gay spent her two-year assignment shuttling wounded between countries.
“I came into the Air Force in 1966, and at the time, it was a two-year commitment, and I figured for two years, I could do anything. But I told the recruiter that I wanted – I’d really like – to work in pediatrics. She said, ‘Well, if you would like to do that, your chances of doing that in the Air Force are slim and none.’”
Gay’s first assignment was at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. The base had a pediatric unit. The chief nurse only assigned nurses to the unit who wanted to work in pediatrics, so she got her wish. It was at Maxwell that Gay made several lifelong friends.
After completing that assignment, she attended flight school. That decision led to her two-year stint in the Philippines.
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“Our assignment was unusual,” said Gay. “We stayed with the same air group. So we flew with the 6485th, and it was a propeller aircraft with four engines. And so we could go in and out of places that the larger 141s couldn’t get into.”
Their group flew wounded U.S. Airmen, Sailors, soldiers, and Marines, Korean soldiers, and Vietnamese prisoners of war between Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Thailand, Taiwan, and the Philippines. The team slept in hotels, trailers, and guest quarters, depending on their location. In the Philippines, they had their own bachelor officers’ quarters. Gay had a small but nice apartment that consisted of a bedroom and bathroom.
“One of my close friends that I knew from my first assignment was at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam,” said Gay. “When I was flying, I’d see her. She was there for a year. And every time I flew out, I felt so bad because at least I could fly away and get out of it for a while.”
The planes were marked clearly with the Red Cross, designating them as medical planes. That meant they had to fly into Vietnam during the daytime. Gay said they sometimes took ground fire anyway. While it was not like being in the thick of the fighting, she said they definitely earned their flight pay.
As she shared stories about her time as a flight nurse, it became clear that Gay is a practical, kind, and resourceful person. Once, a member of her team miscounted the amount of plastic silverware needed to feed everyone on a flight. She broke out their tongue blades and fed the wounded with them. When she wrote up the discrepancy and was asked how everyone ate, she joked, “If we have anybody that ends up with splinters in their tongue, we’re in trouble.”
Returning to the states took some adjustment. Gay served in the Air Force for two more years. During that time, she met her husband. She left the service after they were married and she became pregnant. Her husband had a 30-year career in the Air Force as an investigator.
Today, Gay is a member of the Society of Air Force Nurses.
“We’re pretty active in this area, and we get together for Memorial Day and for Christmas. We put tributes on all the Air Force nurses that we knew who are at Arlington,” said Gay. “That’s a big cemetery, and we do about 220 tributes.”
Gay was at the dedication of the Women’s Memorial at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1993. She called that day an experience where she was able to meet up with friends she had not seen in several years. In contrast, the first time she visited the memorial wall, her friend, who was stationed in Cam Ranh Bay, was also visiting the area.
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“It’s the first time I went, I mean, I lived here, but I just hadn’t gone. And we went, it felt like going to a funeral home,” said Gay. “Of course, she recognized names. I only knew the name of a kid I went to high school with, but I didn’t know any names. I mean, it was interesting how we had different roles.”