Carmen Dumler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Second Lieutenant Carmen Lozano Dumler (born 1924 in San Juan, Puerto Rico), was one of the first Puerto Rican women to become a United States Army officer.
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Lozano was born and raised in the capital city of Puerto Rico, where she also received her primary and secondary education. After graduating from high school, she enrolled in the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing in San Juan where she became a certified nurse in 1944.
By this time the United States had entered World War II and therefore needed to boost its military capabilities; as a result, the Army ordered Puerto Rico's 65th Infantry Regiment to full war strength and drafted many Puerto Ricans — even those whose knowledge of English was minimal. As a result the Army recognized the need for bilingual nurses to help the soldiers that returned with wounds. In 1944, the Army sent three WAC (Women's Army Corps) recruiters to the island to organize a unit of 200 WACs. Over 1,500 women responded to the call and applied. Lozano applied to become an Army nurse and was one of thirteen women to be selected.
On August 21, 1944, she was sworn in as a 2nd Lieutenant and assigned to the 161st General Hospital in San Juan, where she continued to receive further training. Upon completing her advanced training, she was sent to Camp Tortugero where she also assisted as an interpreter whenever needed.
In 1945, Lozano was reassigned to the 359th Station Hospital of Ft. Read, Trinidad and Tobago, British West Indies, there she attended wounded soldiers who had returned from Normandy, France.
While in Trinidad she decided that she would like to become a doctor after the war and took correspondence courses from Louisiana State University. She met Army Doctor Lieutenant Joseph Dumler in Trinidad and they were married in the Base Chapel. After the war, Lozano, like so many other women in the military, returned to civilian life. She continued her nursing career in Puerto Rico until she retired in 1975.
