Although her parents felt that military nursing "wasn't the life for a nice Jewish girl," Miriam Miller enlisted in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) during World War II, soon after her graduation from the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital School of Nursing.  

She was assigned first to the Great Lakes Naval Station and then to the San Diego Naval Hospital. Later, when the Navy relaxed its prohibition on women serving outside the continental U.S., she went to Guam, where she cared for soldiers injured in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Active in veterans' affairs after the war, Miller was elected President of the Jewish War Veterans National Ladies Auxiliary in 1961.

Though the School of Nursing no longer exists, Wilkes-Barre General Hospital is still Northeastern Pennsylvania's largest community hospital.

To learn more about Miriam Miller, visit Jewish Women in the Military: Miriam Miller.

See also: Jewish Women in the Military: WAVES; Jewesses with Attitude "Remembering Jewish Women in the Service; Jewish American Women and WWII online collecting project; "Jewish American Women and World War II" exhibit on Flickr Commons.