BROOKINGS — “The reason I do things is to have a purpose in life,” pretty well sums up simply what Brookings resident Betty “Sam” Vaughn, 77, does for her community’s military veterans.
“Everybody has to have a reason for being here and a reason for getting up every morning,” she said. “If I can do something special for somebody to make a spark in their day, then I’m happy; then I feel like I’ve done something.”
The native South Dakotan grew up on a farm near Corona outside Milbank. Her parents were Henry and Janet Van Sambeek. She’s the second oldest of 15 children, seven boys and eight girls. Growing up on a farm instilled in her a get-the-job-done approach to life.
“My brothers were scared of the cows, so I did all the milking,” she said. All of her brothers and sisters are still alive, except the youngest, a sister who died of ovarian cancer at 47.
“We sisters are very close,” Vaughn explained. “We get together every two years, and we have a craft week at one of the sisters’ houses. A couple of my sisters are very crafty, and they come up with the ideas, and they get all of the supplies. Then I go there and follow all the directions, and I make lots of crafts.”
She graduated from Milbank High School in 1966 and continued her higher education at South Dakota State University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 1970. She joined the Army Nurse Corps shortly thereafter and served in Vietnam from April 1971 to April 1972 in an evacuation hospital at Long Binh.
Soon after her arrival in country, the young lieutenant received an early promotion to captain. Because her surname — Van Sambeek — was so long on her name tag that it was hard to read, she became “Captain Sam.” Returning to CONUS at the end of her tour of duty, she was posted to the Army General Hospital in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
While there, she requested duty in Germany. Her request was denied. Instead, she was sent to Fox Army Health Center at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, where she left active duty in 1973. She was ready to move to California to be with her boyfriend.
However, before that happened, she received a “Dear Sam” letter — for her, as a woman, the equivalent of a “Dear John” letter — telling her he’d found someone else and their relationship was over. But she went anyway — and lived with her ex-boyfriend’s parents until she found an apartment. She stayed in California for six months. Then her life took a sudden change.
“I went to Christmas Eve Mass in 1973 and a soldier walked in,” she recalled. “As soon as I saw that soldier, I knew where I needed to be. The next week I went down to the recruiter and asked what I needed to do to get a guaranteed assignment to Germany. He said, ‘Sign on this line.’ Six weeks later, I was in Germany.”
For two years, from 1974 to 1976, she served at the U.S. Army Hospital in Nuremburg, in a surgical unit. “I was sort of like a general nurse, medical and surgical,” Vaughn explained. “I did a lot of orthopedics and general surgery.”
Germany to CONUS to Germany
“While I was in Germany, I finally met my soulmate,” Vaughn said. “I came home and retired from the military in 1976.” Overall, she had served in the Army for six years of active duty and for seven in the Army Reserve.
She then returned to Germany and, on Oct.16, 1976, married Forest Clay Vaughn III. They were married for 15 years and had three children.
In 1991, after several years of active duty at several postings along the East Coast, they were stationed in Florida. While there, Clay contracted pancreatic cancer and died 10 months later. He was 44 years old.
She and their three children — ages 14, 12 and 7 — stayed in Florida for awhile. Her oldest son did a tour of duty in the Army; her daughter went off to college; and Vaughn and her youngest son returned to South Dakota and settled in Brookings. He was a sophomore in high school.
“I always said I wanted to go back to South Dakota,” Vaughn said. “This is God’s country.”
Loving the Legion
Here in Brookings, Vaughn met a former Army nurse who convinced her that she should join the American Legion. She did.
“I haven’t looked back,” Vaughn said. “I’m a member of all the different veterans’ organizations, but I chose to be active in the American Legion (Post No.74). Helping veterans has given me more satisfaction than any job ever could. I believe in everything that the American Legion stands for. There’s that camaraderie you don’t find that anyplace else.”
Her duties over the years have included: retiring flags, finance officer, pancake chairman and membership chairman. One of her biggest undertakings has been helping organize the annual pork feed fundraiser for the upkeep of the Brookings County Veterans Memorial.
“I’m a doer; I see something that needs to be done and I do it,” Vaughn said of her approach to local Legion needs. She added, “I love my country. I love Brookings. I love the American Legion.”
“I’m training other Legion members, so when I leave they won’t even know I’m gone,” she noted of her planning to move from Brookings in the near future.
Over the course of many years, Vaughn’s grandfather, father, husband, two sons, two brothers and she have all served in uniformed service.
“I guess you might say we’re a military family,” Vaugn noted. Add to that: Her American Legion family will miss her.
— Contact John Kubal at [email protected].
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