Trauma nurse saves lives around the world Bronze Star recipient Kenny Harryman to receive honorary degree in May By Chris Kenning, Ckenning2@gmail.com iT WAs 2008 in eAsTern AfGhAnisTAn, “distinguished career and years of serv- and Kenny Harryman had spent 18 hours ice to our country.” She’ll also speak to in the operating room patching up sev- graduates. erely wounded soldiers after a suicide “To honor somebody as ordinary as bomber had breached the gates of her me is amazing,” Lt. Col. Harryman said frontline Army base. in a telephone interview from her cur- But shortly after dragging herself rent assignment leading a squadron at back to her tent, exhausted, the Air Force a U.S. base in the Azores Islands. nurse was awakened by exploding rockets Peter Kremer, executive director of and mortars. As gunfire raged once again, the Bellarmine University Alumni As- she rushed through the chaos to the hos- sociation, said Lt. Col. Harryman stood pital to help save more wounded soldiers. out because her service to others and Her actions helped the 1993 Bellar- her work to improve the world embody mine graduate earn the Bronze Star for Bellarmine’s values. exceptionally meritorious service, but the Lt. Col. Harryman, who grew up on prestigious combat medal didn’t mark Payne Street in Louisville and gradu- the end of her efforts to heal the wounds ated from Atherton High School in 1974, of war. After leaving the front lines, she was in her mid-30s and working in ac- spent the next four years in Germany’s counting when she decided to pursue a Landstuhl Regional Hospital, treating nursing degree at Bellarmine. wounded soldiers airlifted from Iraq and She happened to be on campus one Afghanistan with some of the war’s most day when Army recruiters were giving grievous wounds. a talk. She watched students eating free The 56-year-old grandmother is pizza and leaving without listening, so coming back to Louisville in May to be she stuck around. “I felt bad and decided honored at Bellarmine University for her to listen to their spiel,” she recalled. accomplishments, and it’s a homecom- Although she was older than most ing that will bring Lt. Col. Harryman full recruits, the prospect of the stability circle to the place where she earned her the military could bring struck a chord. nursing degree and launched her excep- Lt. Col. Harryman’s husband, who had tional 20-year military career. a visual disability, could no longer drive. During Spring Commencement, she’ll And with three children to support and be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane irregular hours being offered at a local Letters degree that Bellarmine President hospital, she decided to join the Army Joseph McGowan said will celebrate a to practice nursing. 42 BELLArMinE MAgAZinE
Bellarmine Magazine_Spring2013
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