The army medical evacuation plane was loaded with twenty-four wounded soldiers. Lieutenant Grant (now Swearinger) and her medical tech were busy comforting their patients for the flight. Suddenly, a warning call sounded, a German fighter plane was approaching. "They gave the order to evacuate the plane... I said, 'where are the patients going to be, are they going to stay inside?' Well, they are my patients and I am going to stay and care for them."

The fighter strafed the field, but fortunately Lena's plane was not hit.

Facing uncertainties in life began early for Lena. To continue her education after elementary school, she was "shipped off' five hundred miles to the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California. After high school, she boarded a bus for Oklahoma and junior college. "Then I went into nurses training at Sage Memorial Hospital in Arizona, where I spent three hard years. I went to Phoenix for my R.N., and in June of 1941 I joined the Army Nurse Corps." Later, she was accepted into the Army Air Evacuation Corp.

Lena Grant spent two years in Europe with the 816th Squadron. She flew countless missions nursing America's injured soldiers, facing danger with each flight. In November of 1945 she sailed for home. "...then early one morning, after days on the sea, we sailed into New York, and I saw the lady with the lamp. It was the best thing I' d seen for a long time." 

In 1945 Lena was awarded America's Air Medal and promoted to Captain in 1946.

We thank you Lena for your dedicated service