SANTA ANA : Ex-Nurse Gets Star Treatment

Margaret McCarthy’s wishes came true on Tuesday when she donned a World War II Army nurse’s uniform and received four service medals from television personality Ed McMahon.

After suffering a stroke 20 years ago, McCarthy, 69, lost her medals and the olive-green officer’s uniform she wore during the Burma Campaign in 1945.

The items were misplaced when she moved from a hospital to a board-and-care home and then to a nursing home. Since 1982, the former first lieutenant has been at the Hallmark Nursing Center in Tustin, where residents, staff and reporters gathered for the medal ceremony Tuesday.

“It’s nice,” McCarthy said when asked how it felt to be back in the uniform. “If I were younger, I’d be back in the Army.”

Receiving the medals from McMahon was a special treat for McCarthy, because they were classmates at Catholic University of America in Washington. They both graduated in 1949, and their photographs appeared on the same page of the yearbook.

“I don’t know whether I ever knew her,” McMahon said. “I was married, of course, and not allowed to fool around.”

McCarthy, who served in the Army during World War II and then became a civilian nurse, is a fan of McMahon and has followed his career for years, watching both the “Tonight Show” and “Star Search.”

Coincidentally, McMahon is an advisory board member of the Veterans Wish Foundation, which tracked down the uniform, secured the medals and arranged for the ceremony to fulfill McCarthy’s wishes on Tuesday.

The foundation, a program of the Santa Ana-based American Veterans Assistance Corp., generally grants wishes to terminally ill veterans, but made an exception in McCarthy’s case. She is frail and weak from several strokes and inactive tuberculosis, but her friends and hospital administrators say she still has plenty of spirit.

“She’s a spunky gal, which was one of the reasons she was singled out for this,” said Stan Windhorn, director of community relations for the nonprofit foundation.

From her reclining wheelchair on Tuesday, McCarthy pointed to her bandaged foot and joked that she injured it while practicing to audition for “Star Search.”

In reality, she broke her ankle a few weeks ago while trying to build her tolerance and stamina for the ceremony, said Rachel Bennett, administrator for the nursing home.

Four other veterans were also honored Tuesday. Three--Samuel B. Mattison, Ralph Thomas and Albert Adams--are also residents of Hallmark. The fourth, Dora Harch, was in the same nurses’ training class as McCarthy in Buffalo, N.Y., and now lives in Irvine.