Oldest Native Veteran

Julia Kabance (1910-) is the oldest known Native American World War II Veteran. Kabance was born on the Prairie Band Potawatomi Reservation in Kansas. She began serving in the Women’s Army Corps in 1943 during World War II and was stationed at McChord Air Force Base, Washington in the Adjutant Corps. 

She went to a recruiting office in Kansas City, and officials put her and 24 other young women on a train to Fort Des Moines. “They don’t treat you like ladies,” she said of the trip. “They treat you like Soldiers. They were sent to Fort Leavenworth to take over office jobs so that the men who had been doing them could leave to fight overseas. The men didn’t like the women for that reason.

She said a Sergeant Major in the unit once told her they liked to hire girls. He told her, “I can get more work out of one WAC than three lazy GIs.”

After discharging from the Army in 1946 as a Staff Sergeant, Kabance volunteered at the VA in Topeka, Kansas, for 17 years. She helped physical therapy patients and whatever else was needed. Her work with Veterans, often sobering in revealing the ravages of battle, became a career for her as the years progressed.