Hays, Anna Mae, 1920–2018, American general, b. Buffalo, N.Y., as Anna Mae Violet McCabe. Trained as a nurse (1941), she enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps (1942) and served in Assam, India, where she treated engineers and workers on the Ledo Road (see Burma Road). Hays worked in military hospitals in the United States, served in a Korean War field hospital and in other assignments, and rose though the ranks to become assistant chief of the nurse corps (1963–66). Appointed chief of army nurses (1967–71), she was made a brigadier general in 1970, becoming the first American woman to serve as a general officer. During her service in the army, she helped establish the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing.
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