Voices that Inspire

What inspires you from WFSU public media here is this week's voices that inspire. I'm Christine Cloud Bethia. My brother's name was Harry James Cloud. I was a senior in high school when he went to Vietnam. He was 20 when he was killed. His job was a gunner, so he was infantry. My brother's squad leader had been killed. Harry had taken over to lead the squad, and at one point he actually exposed himself to draw the enemy out so that they could better engage them. My brother was able to move himself and his group to another location, but they were attacked again and that attack is when he was killed. This death really directed me more to my career choice. One of my father's sisters was a nurse. She was one of the graduates from Florida in the University School of Nursing back in the 40s. She had also gone into the army, and I was always kind of impressed with her. I thought she was kind of cool, so I wanted to be like her when my brother was actually killed in the army. That kind of made it my ultimate goal. It was as though when that happened, I didn't have any other choice. I was going to be a nurse, and I wanted to take care of soldiers, cause of what had happened to him. My military service was in the Army Nurse Corps from April of 84 to April of 87. Discover more Vietnam stories at WFSU.org slash Vietnam. Voices that inspire is produced by WFSU Public Media in partnership with our local community.