Leila Morrison was born in July 1922 in Blue Ridge, Georgia. She had a very happy childhood. Her father was a merchant who owned a hardware and furniture store. He later became a mortician. Morrison's mother died when she was three years old, and she does not remember her at all. She had a wonderful stepmother. As a child, she dreamed of becoming a nurse. She went to Chattanooga, Tennessee to study at Baroness Erlanger Hospital, an arm of the University of Tennessee. In grade school, she walked the mile to and from school. She played basketball in high school. She had four older brothers and two older sisters who all played basketball too. The family felt the effects of the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], but were at an advantage because her father was well-established in his business. Morrison had friends whose fathers had served in World War 1 [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918].

Leila Morrison attended a nursing program in Chattanooga, Tennessee [Annotator's Note: at Baroness Erlanger Hospital, an arm of the University of Tennessee]. She loved it from the start. The only thing that worried her was that they were told nurses could never make a mistake. She felt pressure since no one had ever flunked out, and she worried that she would be the first, so she studied hard. Students could not be married. They had to wake up early and often worked late. After six months, not only were they taking classes, but they also had several hours of practice on the hospital floor. It was a thrill to take care of patients. Morrison graduated in June 1943, and then had to take the board exam in August of that year, and was thankful to have passed. She was in school when Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] happened. She could not believe it. She was young, but realized the nurses were going to have a lot of responsibility. When Morrison was a senior, she was asked to stay at the school and teach. The hospital was already short nurses because so many people were serving in the war. A recruiter came to the school and tried to convince them to volunteer, insinuating that to be drafted would be an insult to the profession. Morrison decided to volunteer for the Army Air Corps, which is now the Army Air Force. She had dreams of being a flight nurse. Her father suffered from a coronary and passed away just after she graduated. She felt an obligation to enlist. Morrison was young, her parents were gone, and she was not married, so she felt that she should join and is glad that she did. She learned lessons she would never have learned otherwise.

Leila Morrison joined the Army Air Corps and was sent to Denver [Annotator's Note: Denver, Colorado] in 1943. She was assigned to Lowry Field in Denver and completed basic training there. She was then sent to Keesler Field, Mississippi and worked there for a short time before going to Santa Ana Army Air Base in California [Annotator's Note: Santa Ana Army Air Base in Santa Ana, California]. In the meantime, she had been transferred to ground rather than air forces as they needed more help. She did overseas training at Camp Bowie, Texas. She was not told anything, but just followed orders. She was put on a troop train, and was hoping she would be sent to Europe which sounded easier than island hopping with the heat and bugs in the Pacific. She stayed a short time at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey until they were told in the middle of the night that they were leaving from New York Harbor [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] and boarded the Queen Elizabeth. The voyage across the ocean lasted six days, and they landed in Scotland. Two and a half ton trucks [Annotator's Note: two and a half ton, six by six truck, also known as deuce and a half] were waiting to pick them up and took them to northern England. They were assigned to large homes rather than barracks. Finally, they were sent to Southampton, England to board a ship and crossed the Channel [Annotator's Note: the English Channel]. They were not far from Omaha Beach [Annotator's Note: one of the landing sites used on D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] in Normandy. There were still sunken ships and mines on the beach. She was 22 years old at the time. Arriving at the beach was a realization for her that they were not playing at war, but in it. Stepping on the beach where so many men, thousands, had been killed felt like sacred ground. She tried to be respectful of the men. She noticed something streaming from the few remaining trees, and learned it was parts of parachutes from airborne troops who did not make it. She will never forget it.

Leila Morrison was met by a two and a half ton truck [Annotator's Note: two and a half ton, six by six truck, also known as deuce and a half], which is what they moved around Europe in the whole time she was there. They were moved very often. They were driven from Scotland to the north of England, to a small town called Mandringham where they were billeted in a private home. Morrison slept on a straw mattress in the garret. They waited for their supplies for several days. The British people were very good to them and would invite the nurses to tea. They had been told to accept the tea, but not the crumpets as the British had very little to eat. Morrison was the youngest one in her outfit, the 118th Evacuation Hospital. The women often did not know where they were. They often traveled at nighttime in full darkness. They went south from northern France to catch up with the war front. They took care of men wounded in the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], where many men were lost. The Germans had old men and teenagers fighting for them. Many of Morrison's patients had lost their limbs to the cold. She also treated gunshot wounds all over the body. The men she treated did not complain. They were thankful to fight for our freedom. They worried for the nurses, that they were too close to the front and in danger, but the nurses reassured them it was okay. During this time, all they did was work and sleep in tents. They were always busy. They worked alongside corpsmen [Annotator's Note: enlisted medical specialist in the US Navy who may also serve in the US Marine Corps; in this case, Morrison is using the term to identify Army medics]. Morrison never knew if her patients survived or not, since she worked in pre-op [Annotator's Note: pre-operation] and would not learn of the outcome of the subsequent surgery. Her unit saved a lot of lives, and she feels good about it.

Leila Morrison still sees the faces of some of her patients [Annotator's Note: while working as a nurse in the 118th Evacuation Hospital in Europe in 1944 and 1945] and wonders if they made it. She did a lot of praying for them. She treated one officer who had been shot in the throat. He was conscious, and looked up at the nurses and told them to let him die. They had started out in northern France, and ended up on the Czech border. They moved often. They slept on cots in some places, or on sleeping bags on the ground. They bathed out of their helmets. It worked fine for a bath, but it was difficult to wash their hair that way. Morrison's future husband served in Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] 3rd Army. They were married after the war and had children. Sometimes their children would get upset for them for not talking about their wartime experiences, but Morrison felt she could only speak to her husband about it because he had been there too and could understand. It was a big relief for both of them to have each other.

When the war ended, Leila Morrison [Annotator's Note: serving as an Army nurse in the 118th Evacuation Hospital in Europe] was not far from Prague, Czechoslovakia [Annotator's Note: now now Prague, Czech Republic]. The Russians were supposed to meet them there, but they showed up a week late. In the mean time, Harry Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] dropped the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. The nurses were told they would be going home right after the war, would be the first back to the states, have a leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], and 30 more days of overseas training to prepare to go to Japan, where casualties were estimated at a million and a half men. When Morrison got back to the states, the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] surrendered so she did not have to go to the Pacific. She and her husband, who had served in the 13th Armored Division in Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] 3rd Army, got married. Morrison had been under General Hodges [Annotator's Note: US Army General Courtney Hicks Hodges] in the 1st Army. Her husband had told her he loved her on their first date, which she thought was ridiculous. They had met in Texas before she was deployed. She would not get married before the war ended, because she did not want to have to worry about anyone beside herself. [Annotator's Note: There is a break in the interview to change tapes at 00:48:53.]

A lot of people had been taken prisoner while Leila Morrison was in Europe [Annotator's Note: as a nurse with the 118th Evacuation Hospital]. They moved from place to place often, and would camp overnight when necessary. They arrived in Weimar, Germany. The Buchenwald concentration camp was nearby. She saw things there she could not believe. There is no way to describe how the people looked. They were skin and bones. She wondered how they could even walk. There was a Czech man who had been a prisoner there who served as their guide through the camp. There was drug experimentation on the prisoners done at this camp. Most of the prisoners were starving to death. Morrison was taken to see the crematorium. There were four stacks of ovens. There were long rows dug where the bodies would be pushed with a bulldozer. The freed prisoners had no transportation available to them, so they began walking. Their Czech guide told them how he was taken by Germans from his jewelry shop one day without any explanation, and did not know if his family was still alive or not. Morrison also heard about how the prisoners were packed into boxcars so tightly that no one could sit down. They were not fed nor given access to sanitary facilities. She still thinks about those people on cold nights, and how grateful she is to have a clean bed and blankets. The experience made a better person out of her. She no longer takes anything for granted. The barracks there were made out of simple timber, just enough to hold beds three-high. The freed prisoners were called DPs, for displaced persons. Many had body lice. The stench of the camp had been gotten rid of by the time Morrison arrived, because it had been intolerable.

When Leila Morrison arrived in Buchenwald [Annotator's Note: Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany], the prisoners who were still alive were mobile and were anxious to start walking home. The worst off had already been removed for treatment. She could not believe humans could treat other humans as they had in the camp. She looked at the crematorium and could not believe it was true. The experience made her a better person. She wants people to be so thankful for the lives and not take anything for granted. Even 76 years later, she still cannot believe it. She went back to Omaha Beach [Annotator's Note: one of the landing beaches of D-day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] in 2019 with a group of veterans. Morrison found some peace being there. There were many memorials on the site. She felt so badly that we had lost so many men there. There was a ship in the water that day, and as she looked at it, she could not believe that she ever went over the side of a ship on a rope ladder. She was 96 at the time, and had been 22 when she arrived in Normandy. She decided to get out of the military because she wanted to get married. Their marriage lasted 65 years. It was a happy marriage and they were blessed in many ways.

Had Leila Morrison not served during World War 2, she never could have understood certain things, such as seeing Buchenwald [Annotator's Note: Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, which she visited after its liberation in April 1945]. In a way she feels blessed, and fortunate that she could serve and do something during the war. She was glad to help save lives. If she were 22 year old and had to do it over, she would be happy to serve again. Younger generations should study World War 2 because there are so many lessons to be learned from it. People who were not there could not understand what it feels like, but it is important that people know that our freedom is not free. It was earned with a very high price. She wants people to be thankful and not take anything for granted.