My husband’s in Germany and I’m in Canada. I said, ‘What’s the chance that we may end up on the same continent?’ [The career manager] looked at me and said, ‘If the military wanted you to have a spouse, we would have issued you one.’
Cpl (Ret’d) Georgia Morgan enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces at 18, determined to pursue a medical career she couldn’t otherwise afford. It was 1978 and the Vietnam War had just ended.
In high school, the guidance counselors didn’t even talk to anybody from the poor side of the tracks about going beyond high school. I went in for the career opportunity. That’s the only way I could figure out I could still go into medicine.
After basic training at CFB Cornwallis, she trained as a medic at CFB Borden and the National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa. She was then hand-picked for the cardiac ward there—rare for a junior member. She later served at CFB Wainwright.
As a woman in the 1970s military, she faced barriers. After marrying fellow medic Dick Morgan, she found little support from the military in securing a posting that would allow her to join him in Germany. Feeling that she had been given no choice, Morgan shifted to the role of military spouse in Cold War Europe. Her prior military training was valuable — she worked in civilian medical administration in Lahr and raised two children amid international tension and evacuation drills.
We were there when Chernobyl went up. My husband was in Northern Germany on exercise, and they got issued radiation checks … and we were told back in Lahr that if your kids were outside playing, you had to make sure they showered.
After 22 years of service, Dick and Georgia settled in Regina. Dick has since passed, but Georgia remains busy – she is an active member at her local Legion and volunteers with the Canadian Red Cross, deploying across the country when disaster strikes.
I fit right in with the Canadian Red Cross … the military trains you to cope with whatever is happening at the time. Not to panic. Stay calm. Learn to function under change.