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Elizabeth Steadman \u201968<\/b><\/p>\n
From Clemson to Colonel<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> By\u00a0Kenneth Scar<\/b> Steadman began her career as a Clemson nursing student and ended it as an Army colonel, a trailblazer in her own right<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Growing up in Moore, South Carolina, Elizabeth \u201cLibby\u201d Steadman had wanted to become a nurse from a very young age. In 1966, she joined the second-ever nursing class at Clemson, the fourth year Clemson had women\u2019s residence halls on campus. As she walked to and from class, she remembers seeing her fellow students in the Reserve Officer\u2019s Training Corps practicing drill and ceremony on Bowman Field. Among them were women. Libby Steadman began her career as a Clemson nursing student and ended it as an Army colonel, a trailblazer in her own right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":23350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[159,1937,3360],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-23329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","category-my-clemson","tag-alumni","tag-military","tag-winter-2021-alumni-profile"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/Libby-Steadman-Thumbnail.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23329"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\u201cI remember specifically seeing groups of women wearing Air Force uniforms,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThey were called the Angel Flyers, and they functioned as hostesses for the men\u2019s honorary Air Force society. I aspired to be like them.\u201d
\nAt the time, the Vietnam War was making headlines almost every day. Steadman would watch the female cadets in their crisp uniforms marching in neat rows across the grass and feel a sharp desire to serve. But she didn\u2019t want to put her parents through the stress of their only child going to Vietnam, so she resisted enlisting.
\n\u201cOf course, 20 years later, I put them through two wars when they were much older,\u201d she says with a wry laugh.
\nSteadman earned her associate degree in nursing in 1968 and went to work for the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. She joined the Army Reserve in 1974 and continued to work at MUSC while drilling with Army Reserve hospital units, steadily gaining leadership experience and rising up the ranks.
\nIn 1990, she deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm. Her unit was assigned as the farthest forward MASH, supporting the 3rd Armored Division as it pushed inland. In 1995, she became the chief nurse of the 818th Medical Brigade in Atlanta, commanding all Army Reserve medical units in South Carolina, Florida and Georgia.
\nLess than a year after 9\/11, Steadman returned to war. This time, she served as part of the 360th Civil Affairs Brigade, attached to the 18th Airborne Corps \u2014 the first major unit to go into Afghanistan after special operations forces. By that time, Steadman had been promoted to colonel, which made her the highest-ranking female service member in Afghanistan.
\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t scary for me because it was just so interesting,\u201d she remembers. \u201cThere were always mortar rounds coming into Kabul, but they had terrible aim, so they\u2019d land in the street mostly.\u201d
\nSteadman retired from the Army in 2004 and from MUSC in 2012. In 2005, her uniform was enshrined in the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Today, she lives in the ACE Basin of Colleton County and continues to serve by volunteering as a primary care provider at a free clinic in Beaufort.
\nReflecting on her career in nursing, Steadman marvels at how much the profession has changed since she first stepped onto the Clemson campus as a wide-eyed and hopeful nursing student:
\n\u201cI really do encourage people to go into nursing because there are so many different opportunities in that career field now. When I graduated, you could either work in a doctor\u2019s office or in a hospital. Now, there are so many other things that can be done. I\u2019m so thankful for all the opportunities nursing has afforded me, and it all started at Clemson.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>