Memorial Day 2020

Memorial Day 2020 - “Love Eileen”

Eileen Courtney Biersteker of Kaukauna was a remarkable woman and great mother. After graduating Kaukauna High School in 1934. She went on to obtain her nursing degree then joined the Women’s Army Medical Corps during WWII. She was assigned to General George Patton’s Third Army in Germany. General Patton was known for moving fast and keeping the enemy on the run. One of the problems with moving fast was that it left the Medical Corps far behind. Patton changed the policy by having the doctors and nurses near the front lines. This being the first MASH units. This is where the newly commissioned Lt. Eileen Courtney from Kaukauna found herself. She said there were long hours and little rest treating the injured. The medical unit she was assigned treated newly freed POWS from the German camps.   After the war she married Neil Biersteker and they raised eight children together. She was a nurse all her life. Her war experiences were remembered in her letters home which were kept by her parents. She closed each letter home with “Love Eileen”. Her children have placed the letters in a book named “Love Eileen” keeping her war year memories alive. 

Most of the soldiers she treated are no longer living, but their decedent’s number in the thousands. A few years ago, “60 minutes” did a story about soldiers from WWII. The show was listed to be about the POWS. Eileen invited family members over to watch the broadcast at her home in Kaukauna. The reporter interviewed a man who was captured and held prisoner by the Germans. The old Russian soldier talked about being taken to a field hospital once he was freed. He talked of the care he received and especially the wonderful nurses. He remembered one nurse, “She was like an angel”. He talked about making a bracelet while he was in the prison camp from small pieces of metal and wire. He said he had given it to that wonderful nurse that cared for him. Eileen left the room when she returned, she set a bracelet on the table, the bracelet the prisoner had mentioned.

My Aunt Eileen Courtney Biersteker died in 2013. 

MSG Lyle J. Hansen US Army Retired.