Coming up on her 20th year in the mili- to inform citizens of possible dangers. She tary, Hearst has worked as an instructor for served as an instructor in Army training, inothers in the Coast Guard since 2008. It’s a po- cluding in Iraq, and then became the Army sition she might not have applied for without artist-in-residence in 2012, a position she will her experience at Meredith: “The confidence hold for another year. Her job as official artist I developed at Meredith allowed me to put in has taken her all over the United States and the world, including to Afghanistan, where for instructor duty at our training center.” Marie Mason, ’47, is Meredith’s oldest she visited the front lines to record the Army’s known alumna veteran. Mason, a psychol- experiences there. ogy major who went on to get her Ph.D. and As the Army artist-in-residence, Brown return to Meredith in 1970 as Dean of Stu- said she captures “the emotional response to dents and professor of psychology, served in war.” the Army Nurse Corps during World War II “I have the ability to condense several moments into one moment, or to take creative before she attended Meredith. Mason, now 98, cited a feeling of obliga- license,” Brown said. “There are 10,000 things tion as her reason for joining the Nurse Corps going on on the battlefield. There’s not a moin 1943: she had a younger brother serving in ment missed if I don’t want it to be missed.” Because women make up such a small the U.S. Army Air Corps. “I was thinking, if he gets hurt, I hope percentage of the United States military, Meredith College is somebody takes care to increase of him. And I said, “I capture the emotional working awareness of female ‘Well, what about you, service members and Marie? Why can’t you response to war.” go take care of him?’” – Amy Mills Brown,’00, Army artist-in-residence veterans. For instance, in 2012 and most re So Mason, who cently in 2014, Merwas already a trained edith was named a nurse, joined the Army Nurse Corps, attending training at “Military Friendly School” by Victory Media, Camp Davis in Onslow County in North a veteran-owned company. This designation Carolina. She was commissioned as a second signifies that Meredith is among the top 20% lieutenant and served overseas, including in of schools nationwide in providing a good Aversa, Italy, near Naples. When Mason left experience for veterans or current service the military in 1946, she returned to North members. Carolina and began studying at Meredith, Meredith is working in other ways to completing a degree she had begun before shine a spotlight on the contributions of women like these alumnae. For the past enlisting. Brown, the Army’s official artist, also two years, Meredith has held a Veterans joined the military out of a sense of patrio- Day Service specifically honoring female veterans. The event is planned again for this tism and desire to serve the United States. After graduating from Meredith, she was November. a high school art teacher in Wake County in “As a women’s college, it’s important for North Carolina. The morning of September us to give students and members of the com11, 2001, she and her students watched the munity knowledge of all kinds of ways that news images of the terrorist attacks. Soon af- women have been important in our history,” said Jean Jackson, ’75, vice president for Colter, Brown talked with an Army recruiter. After basic training, Brown served as a lege Programs. “Serving in the military is one multimedia illustrator, a job that included of those ways, and it’s something that most of designing for the internet and creating leaf- us know little about unless we’ve had direct lets for the Army to drop in towns overseas contact.”
Meredith’s Ship Comes In During World War II, Meredith College, as well as its faculty and students, contributed nearly $200,000 to the war effort, according to a 1967 issue of the Twig student newspaper. This service to the country earned the College something that many people don’t know about today: the name of a ship.
The SS Meredith Victory was a Mer-
chant Marine cargo freighter named for Meredith College, commissioned in 1945 and designed to carry supplies during World War II. The ship deployed again during the Korean War, when its legacy was cemented. In 1950, the SS Meredith Victory aided in “one of the greatest marine rescues in the history of the world,” according to a 1960 letter from the U.S. government. The ship, which was designed to carry supplies and about 35 crew members, rescued 14,000 North Korean refugees, carrying them 450 miles to a South Korean port. The ship served again during the Vietnam War, and afterward, it was decommissioned and sold for scrap metal. It still holds the Guinness World Record for largest evacuation from land by a single ship. F all 2014 | M E R E D IT H M A G A Z I N E F all 2014 | M E R E D IT H M A G A Z I N E
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