Following the desegregation of the military in the 1940s, the first Black woman to enlist in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps passed away. Her age was 104.
During her lengthy military career, Nancy Leftenant-Colon quietly broke down racial barriers. She retired as a major and passed away earlier this month at a nursing facility in New York.
She was one of six siblings, including a brother who was a well-known pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen, who participated in the war. Her name was Lefty. A biography of Leftenant-Colon on the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. website states that he was killed in a mid-air crash over Austria in 1945. His body has never been located.
According to her nephew Chris Leftenant, who spoke to The Associated Press, she was simply an amazing person. When she was doing all of this first this, first that, she never made any waves. She never gave it any thought. It was simply taking place.
Leftenant-Colon first enlisted as a nurse in the all-Black 332nd Fighter Group following the desegregation of the military in 1948. Following the disbandment of the 332nd Fighter Group, she enlisted in the U.S. Air Force to support the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.
She helped evacuate French Legionnaires from Vietnam, established hospital wards in Japan, and participated in the first medical evacuation flight into Dien Bien Phu, where Vietnamese forces beat the French colonial army almost 70 years ago. The Tuskegee Airmen Inc. website states that she retired in 1965 as a chief nurse.
She then worked as a school nurse at Amityville Memorial High School in New York from 1971 to 1984. A school district press release stated that she was well-known for her line The possibilities are endless. Her name has been added to the library’s media center.
She also served as the Tuskegee Airmen Inc.’s first elected female president from 1989 to 1991.
According to Chris Lefenant, she set the example and kept all the doors open. She was merely the initial one. However, she made sure that someone else followed behind her whenever and whenever she could.
She was remembered as a firecracker by Suffolk County Legislator Jason Richberg, who gave Leftenant-Colon a proclamation in 2022.
He added that sitting alongside her was a true honor. It was great that she was unapologetically herself. She was real. She was modest. She expressed her demands and desires clearly. She was always full of wonderful tales about her family and her period.
Richberg said that, similar to Chris Lefenant, she wasn’t one to brag about her noteworthy achievements. Regarding her past, she was modest. “I was doing my part,” she added. Even though she is a hero to her family, she wanted everyone to know that they are capable of more, he added.
In the year 1920, Leftenant-Colon was born in Goose Creek, South Carolina. She was the granddaughter of a freed slave and one of twelve children. In 1923, her family moved from the South to Amityville, New York, where she passed away on January 8.