This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Dawn Ackley-Family
to remember
Graham, Annie Ruth, LTC.
If you knew or served with this Soldier and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Casualty Info
Home Town Efland, NC
Last Address Efland, NC
Casualty Date Aug 14, 1968
Cause Non Hostile- Died of Illness, Other Injury
Reason Stroke
Location Vietnam, South (Vietnam)
Conflict Vietnam War
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
LTC Annie Ruth Graham died at the Tachikawa Air Force Hospital, Japan, on the fourteenth of August 1968.
Ruth was admitted to the 91st Evacuation Hospital at 10:30 p.m. on 8 August, after suffering what appeared at first to be a fainting spell. Upon admission to the hospital her illness was diagnosed as a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Due to the seriousness of her condition she was evacuated, with one of the physicians in attendance, to the U.S. Air Force Hospital at Tachikawa Air Force Base, Japan, where, despite every effort to save her life, she died at 9:55pm on the fourteenth of August.
A veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, she was 51.
Comments/Citation:
07 Feb 1998
Annie Ruth Graham's final Christmas Letter to friends and family, 1967:
Greetings!
This Christmas finds me a long, long way from North Carolina. I arrived in Saigon on 18 November and almost immediately departed for Tuy Hoa (pronounced Too-ey Wah) where our hospital (400 bed) is located directly on the beach of the South China Sea which is perfectly beautiful but quite treacherous. All buildings here are tropical type and the hospital is cantonment style. It is monsoon season now so we have torrential rains at times. The climate is quite humid but the nights are really rather pleasant. Getting used to my new outfit (tropical fatigues, jungle boots, and "baseball cap") is not as "exciting" as in World War II but I'm quite sure I'll manage to survive it all! Our nursing staff consists of 59 nurses (12 male) who of our enlisted personnel seem very well trained and apparently have been doing an excellent job.
The tour of duty here is 12 months so I plan to be home for Christmas next year.
I hope you have had a good year and that your Christmas is filled with joy and the New Year with more happiness than you could possibly wish for.
Hope, too, that everyone will pray for peace.
Love, Ruth
