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Captain Katherine Keating
Born February 8, 1922
Inducted 2008
Katherine Keating served the United States of America through
three wars, sailed around the world, was the first woman in the
Navy to rise from Seaman Recruit to Captain (the highest rank in
the Medical Service Corps in which she served), was only the second
female pharmacy officer, the first woman pharmacist to attain the
rank of captain, the first woman in the Medical Service Corps to
go to sea, and the first woman officer to replace a male officer
at sea. Captain Keating retired a decorated officer after a distinguished
30-year career.
Kay Keating was a pharmacy student at the University of Colorado
when she enlisted in the WAVES in the middle of World War II, one
of the first group of U.S. servicewomen to serve overseas during
the war. She was a radio operator under the sugarcane fields of
Hawaii. At the end of the war, Keating returned to Colorado, became
a member of the Naval Reserve, finished her pharmacy degree at
CU, and was then appointed to the Medical Service Corps. During
the Korean War, Captain Keating was assigned to the hospital ship
USS Haven, a tour which included evacuating French Foreign Legion
survivors of the Dien Bein Phu battle. Keating then served at an
EVAC hospital in Japan during the Vietnam War. As an authority
in the pharmaceutical field, Keating was the Chief of Pharmacy
Service at six large naval hospitals and an instructor at the Pharmacy
Technician School in San Diego, California. In 1993, Keating was
one of the women pharmacists honored when a new statute was added
to the American Pharmaceutical Association’s Flagpole Memorial,
to commemorate the service of military pharmacists from the Korean,
Vietnam, and Persian Gulf conflicts.
Keating retired from the Navy to her childhood home of landlocked
Beulah, Colorado, where she ran a B&B to accommodate people
from around the world and became a pillar of the community. The
City Council of Pueblo declared March 24, 2006 as Kay Keating Day.
Keating was one of the moving forces and largest fundraiser behind
the Colorado portion of the Women in Military Service for America
Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery and remains active in efforts
to recognize all female veterans of Colorado as part of the memorial. |
