USN Hospital Corps School Great Lakes

• Oldest Military Medical School: The Hospital Corps School at Great Lakes was established in 1913, making it one of the oldest formal training programs for military medical personnel in the United States. • Birth of the Hospital Corps: The Hospital Corps itself was created by an act of Congress on 17 June 1898 during the Spanish-American War, but Great Lakes became the primary school for training after 1913. • World War I Expansion: During World War I, the school rapidly expanded to meet the demand for trained corpsmen, graduating thousands who served on ships and with Marine units. • WWII Training Hub: In World War II, the school at Great Lakes trained over 100,000 hospital corpsmen, making it the largest military medical training facility of its kind at the time. • Korean and Vietnam Wars: Corpsmen trained at Great Lakes served heroically in both Korea and Vietnam, winning numerous medals for valor and saving countless lives. • Women in the Corps: In 1945, the first class of WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) hospital corpsmen graduated from Great Lakes, breaking new ground for women in Navy medicine. • Medal of Honor Recipients: Several Hospital Corps School Great Lakes graduates have received the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. military decoration, for their bravery and self-sacrifice. • Modernization and Relocation: In 2011, the Navy consolidated all entry-level hospital corpsman training at the Medical Education and Training Campus (METC) at Joint Base San Antonio, closing the Great Lakes school after nearly 100 years of service. • Iconic Motto: "In Service to Humanity" was the guiding motto at the school, reflecting the unique blend of combat readiness and compassionate care taught to every student. • Legacy: The school’s alumni include tens of thousands of Navy and Marine Corps corpsmen, many of whom have gone on to lifelong service in medicine, nursing, and public health.