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SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2024 | KILLEEN DAILY HERALD
Killeen resident has decades of nursing under her belt Editor’s Note: This feature about Killeen resident and veteran Lisa Williams, a longtime nurse and military spouse, originally ran in Fort Cavazos Herald last year. BY JOHN CLARK HERALD CORRESPONDENT
A recruiter’s visit to her high school convinced Atlanta native Lisa Williams that the U.S. Army might be a good fit for her, but when she hurried home and ran the idea by her family, they were not nearly as excited. “My family was, like, uh-uh, she is not going in the military. No way,” the Killeen resident said. “I was one of those students who didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I never saw myself going to college. That was not for me. We didn’t have that kind of finances. I hadn’t done anything as far as scholarships; I was a mediocre student. “When I was growing up, I would always see this (Army) commercial on the news: ‘Be all you can be. We do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day.’ Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was, like, I want to do that. The recruiters came to the high school and did the exam there, and I scored fairly well. I thought, OK, I can do this thing. “My mom and my aunt would not sign the papers, but I was determined. I was ready to get out of Atlanta, Georgia, and that was my ticket out. I had to wait
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Lisa Williams became a nurse after joining the military and continued working as a nurse in the civilian world.
until I turned 18 in order to sign for myself. That’s what I did, and then I found myself at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.” Fort Jackson is where she went to basic training shortly after graduating high school in 1981. For the most part, Williams enjoyed boot camp, but things got off to a bit of a rough start. “Oh, my Lord, that was a whole different world for me,” she said. “The first thing that happened (was) I got to the
MEPS (Military Entrance and Processing) station and they were giving me all these injections and shots. I thought they were trying to kill me. “I just knew something was wrong. At the time, they had those guns that they were giving the shots with, and they were coming at me. I was crawling up on the tables. They were saying, ‘What’s wrong with this PLEASE SEE NURSING, A5
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Retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Lisa Williams served 20 years in the military and retired from Fort Hood, now Fort Cavazos.