Carol Watson’s life anchored with love, service

By Rebecca Bunch
Chowan Herald

Thursday, November 05, 2009

A love of country and a longing for adventure took Carol Watson of Edenton further than she ever expected.

Watson, who grew up in the tiny town of Salley, S.C., said she decided to go into nurses’ training in the early 1940s when World War II started.

“I joined the Navy at 21,” she said.

People at the time were full of patriotism and considered it an honor to go and serve their country, she said.

Watson said the only time she had seen anything similar to that feeling in recent times was in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

“People reached out to each other then,” she said. “And we saw a love of country and for the flag and what it represented.”

Watson began her training at the Norfolk Naval Air as a young ensign.

Her first duty station was at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital, followed by time at a Naval facility at Willow Grove, Pa.

From there she went to St. Albans Naval Hospital in Long Island, followed by a stint aboard the USS Repose, a hospital ship.

The ship contained everything you would find at a typical hospital, including surgical facilities, and a psychiatric ward. It’s outside was clearly marked with a bright Red Cross.

“That was intended to keep us safe, to make sure we did not get fired on,” she said.

She said the idea of being on a ship had long intrigued her but she had resisted the urge to ask to be assigned to one out of concern for her mother.

“You could request the duty station you wanted,” Watson recalled, “but I didn’t ask to be aboard a ship because I thought it would cause my mother additional worry.”

Watson admitted her mother did not particularly want her to join the military out of concern for her safety “but she did not tell me not to go.”

Her younger brother was in a military reserve unit, she said, and “he didn’t want me to go either.”

While on the Repose, Watson and a group of fellow nurses spent one and a half years in Shanghai, China.

“I also got to spend time in Hawaii, New York, Philadelphia. For a small-town girl seeing those places was like a dream come true.”

But it was in Trinidad she met and married the love of her live, George Watson.

He was a Naval corpsman who had joined the military just one year before Carol.

But his military experience had been one of danger during action in Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

“He didn’t really like to talk about his military service,” Carol remembered.

Except for one memory he did share with her.

“He was on the battlefield and he was bending over to take care of a wounded soldier, when he heard a shot ring out,” she said. “Then another soldier motioned to him and said, would you like to have this sword? You were getting ready to have your head chopped off!”

These days, Carol Watson keeps busy volunteering at her church, Edenton United Methodist, and the local Clothes Closet.

She has received a number of honors, including being named Woman of the Year by the local BPW Club.

She considers her volunteerism an outgrowth of her love of country.

“You’re helping people. You do a lot, enough to cover a multitude of sins,” Watson said jokingly. But it’s clear her heart remains firmly anchored in helping others.