Conway’s non-profit Anderson Oaks Assisted Living is home to 17 veterans they’ve helped get benefits through Veterans Affairs. Three of those veterans, including Treva Green, are World War II veterans.

Green is their oldest living veteran. She was an Army nurse between October of 1943 and December of 1945. She’s seen everything from the Battle of the Bulge, to Hitler’s hideout.

“We went over on the Queen Mary and came back in a cattle boat,” said Green. “We went over feeling like queens, but came back feeling like, *laughs*.”

From her hometown of Forest City, North Carolina, she was sent to Keesler Field, then from there went to Camp Swift in Texas to be evacuated to go overseas to England. 

98-year-old Treva Green remembers her first morning overseas in Europe during World War II as though it was yesterday.

“The next morning, we were called out at 6 o’clock to meet on deck of the ship and the first thing they announced to us was, the reason you were told to sleep in your lifejackets… Because we were in a nest of submarines,” she said.

Being surrounded by a nest of German U-boats wasn’t the only thing Green saw as an Army operating room nurse. She remembers the destruction the war had left once her unit reached Germany.
 
“I said, my goodness, I didn’t know they used wood over here,” said Green. “They said that’s not wood, that’s bodies. They had tossed them out of the window.”
 
She remembers another story in Germany when she helped take care of an American who got shot in the throat.
 
“The corpsman and I pedaled all night long to keep him from swallowing everything. 3 o’clock the next morning, we landed the plane to get the patient ready and the patient drew his last breath,” she recalled.
 
Green came back to the United States in December of 1945 and got married a year after. She came to Conway in 1960, but didn’t stop serving even though she was back. She worked as an operating room nurse in the city for forty years and retired in March of 1991. 

We asked Green for any advice she has on how people can live their best lives.
 
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not unto thy own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your path,” said Green. “I say it to myself everyday of my life.”
 
Green will be honored with the rank of Grand Marshall on Veteran’s Day this year.
 
Horry County Police Lieutenant Sherri Smith, whose grandmother is Green’s best friend, will give green a police escort to the ceremony in November.