Cathy Illman Sykes Oral History
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Oral history interview with Cathy Illman Sykes
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Primarily documents Cathy Illman Sykes's background; nursing education; service in the U.S. Air Force from 1983 to 2003; and the impact of her military career on the rest of her life. Sykes discusses her family; her decision to obtain a nursing degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), including the influence of Dean Eloise Lewis and her coursework; and her involvement in the ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) program at North Carolina A and T State University in Greensboro, including her acceptance, the classes; her decision to join the air force; the reaction of her family and friends; fraternization; and her field training at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. " Sykes chiefly describes her various duty stations during her twenty-year career. She talks about working at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in the early 1980s in the nurse internship program and the surgical and intensive care units, and about attending a military indoctrination program for medical officers. Sykes discusses her efforts to join her husband at Scott Air Force Base in 1985 and working in the intensive care unit there. She also describes her classes in flight school at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, bringing her horse down with her, and the stables at Fort Sam Houston. " Sykes comments on her overseas service in Germany and Saudi Arabia. She describes in detail her flight assignment to Rhein Mein Air Force Base, including: passengers they carried; flying C-9s and C-130s; flight schedules; working in the Flight Clinical Coordinators and organizing flights; changes as Operation Desert Shield began; preparations for moving personnel and cargo for the war and how that connected to medical personnel; the logistics of moving patients; and working longer hours during the war. Topics relating to Saudi Arabia include living conditions in the Eskon Village and dealing with the sand; food; culture; interactions with the local people; hospitals in Riyadh; shopping downtown; and being disappointed that she transferred back to Germany. Sykes also describes flying two missions into Afghanistan to offload cargo and bring back patients, primarily injured civilians. " Sykes discusses her return to the United States and the rest of her assignments in the 1990s. She describes her nursing education at the University of Maryland in Baltimore from 1991 to 1993; working in the coronary care unit and setting up a nurse-managed outpatient clinic at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi; more than three years at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas; and organizing medic training at Fort Dietrick in Maryland. " Sykes talks at length about topics related to her service at Wilford Hall at Lackland Air Force Base. Subjects include the litter obstacle course; being manager of the recovery room at the Post Anesthesia Care Unit for two years; organizing squadron readiness training; teaching medical disaster response in Hungary and El Salvador, including a live animal lab using anesthetized pigs and seeing the positive effects of their training; and a grant-funded study of nurse skill sustainment that used a Human Patient Simulator. " Topics related to Sykes life after her military career include her work with Strategic Staffing Resources helping immigrant nurses find work and take licensing exams; working with the Red Cross; and various part-time jobs in the medical field. " General topics related to the military include being a military couple; being pregnant and having a child while in the service; her husband's air force career; differences between the military and civilian worlds; and the impact of her air force service on the rest of her life.
