Suiko “Sue” Kumagai
Army Nurse Corps, 1945-1973, Korea, Vietnam

Suiko “Sue” Kumagai
Army Nurse Corps, 1945-1973, Korea, Vietnam

Suiko Kumagai, a Nisei, or second generation Japanese American, committed her life to serving her nation. Kumagai refused to marry, saying she “married Uncle Sam.” She became a student nurse shortly before the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite discrimination white Americans imposed upon Japanese citizens, she joined the U.S. Public Health Service Cadet Nurse Corps. In 1944, she went on to join the Army Nurse Corps, treating war casualties. After World War II, Kumagai volunteered as a civilian for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Hiroshima, Japan, where she studied the effects of the atomic bomb. During the Korean War, the Army Nurse Corps recalled Kumagai to active service in Japan, treating American prisoners of war and training Japanese nurses. Afterward, she served as the chief nurse in the Fourth Surgical Field Hospital in Stuttgart, Germany, until the outbreak of the Vietnam War sent her to Saigon. Kumagai spent the rest of her career at Colorado's Fitzsimons Army Hospital, retiring in 1973 as a colonel, after 28 years of service.