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Dixie Berres

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This is the story of Dixie Berres, one of five veterans from the College of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh featured War: Through Their Eyes, Vol. 2, Warriors & Nurses. This student multimedia project resulted in an 80-page book, a series of podcasts and a photo exhibit.
Dixie Berres

A photo of Dixie Berres, who is featured in the War: Through Their Eyes, Warriors & Nurses student multimedia project

Small Town Girl

Most of her co-workers at Mercy Medical Center in Oshkosh, Wis. know of her military background, but they don’t know the nitty-gritty details. They don’t know about the extreme heat under the unforgiving sun. They don’t know about the desert sand and how it gets into everything. Everything. They don’t know about the monotony of patrolling the tower, carrying an M16, and staring for hours into the darkness of the night. They also don’t know about the fear, the fear of an unseen enemy plotting a mortar attack. They just don’t know.

But some of her patients do. Every once in a while, Dixie Berres, a third-shift nurse on the cardiac floor, would come across a fellow veteran. Within minutes, patient and health care worker become quick fans of each other, for they know. They know what each had done for the good of the country.

To read the entire story, please download this PDF.


In this video, Dixie Berres discusses how the military gave her the confidence needed to deal with the challenges of nursing, her disinterest in the news reports from the front lines and finding out her best friend and maid of honor would be deployed again, missing her wedding.




In this audio podcast, Dixie Berres remembers how September 11th, 2001 changed the course of her life.




Podcast produced by multimedia news intern Noell Dickmann.

 

War: Through Their Eyes, Vol. 2, Warriors & Nurses, a student/faculty multimedia project that focuses on the veterans in the College of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Warriors & Nurses are the stories of the students and alumni who have seen war in the jungles of Vietnam to the deserts in the Middle East, and yet have found their way into a field of healing.

To read the entire 80-page book, please download this PDF. Warning, it is a large file.

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