Summary Walton on the move in the Saudi desert during Operation Desert Shield, 1990. Photo courtesy of Linda Walton. Linda Walton is Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital, in Vero Beach, Fla., and one of a small number of CNOs in American healthcare who has stood in a combat zone and decided which patients would receive the last units of available blood. She deployed three times as an Army Nurse Corps officer: Iraq in 1990 for Oper

Ruth Belnavis carries within her two distinct versions of herself. One is the soldier — eight years in the Army, moving from base to base, following orders, holding inside the weight of experiences too painful to share. The other is the artist — a woman who found her voice on stage, who processes her trauma through performance, who is finally learning to speak her truth. Both women are Ruth. Both stories matter. “I served eight years in the Army, from 1987 to 1995,” she recal