By K.B. Sherman, Contributing Writer

Colonel Nancy Hughes, Nurse Corps, US Army (Retired) and Colonel John Collins, Medical Service Corps, US Army (Retired). (Photo/K.B. Sherman)
Shrewsbury – Husband and wife colonels, John Collins and Nancy Hughes, retired from the military in May after successful 30-year careers in the Army’s medical corps.
Neither began their military service with the idea of making it a career, but both found themselves enjoying so much satisfaction in the Army’s medical community that, along the way, they decided to continue.
Collins was originally from Holliston, but moved with his family to Shrewsbury when his dad, an educator, became superintendent for Shrewsbury schools. He entered the Army through ROTC at Providence College in 1982 and went into the infantry, qualifying as a paratrooper during his first few years. However, while earning advanced degrees in the Army, he worked in the Baylor Program in healthcare administration and switched from the Infantry to the Medical Service Corps. From there he served all over the world at different posts, including Korea (a MASH unit), Florida, Belgium, North Carolina, Virginia, Germany, Georgia and Afghanistan, including a tour as commanding officer for the hospital at Fort Stewart, Ga. In Germany, Collins worked at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
“This was great duty, because it kept you tied into caring daily for the wounded coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “It was very satisfying on that level.”
Collins said that his original intention in joining ROTC was to use one tour as a “bullet” on his resume to make him look more attractive to civilian employers after the Army.
“The military shapes you; it gives you a sense of responsibility unknown to a young man or woman in civilian life,” he said. “The people, the duty, the travel, the responsibility, were unbeatable. My dad was a Korean veteran and my brother, Patrick, served in Desert Storm. To both, their military experience informed them of who they are.”
Hughes went Army in a different way. Originally from Ravenna, Ohio, working at a local hospital, she had met an Army recruiter during a week-long Army experience during her last year of college. While her family was not enthusiastic about military service, she joined, in part, to become more involved in her special interests of child labor, delivery and midwifery, something the civilian medical community did not make available to most junior nurses.
In short order, the Army posted her to where her particular interests were most needed, and she soon found herself with much more responsibility than her civilian counterparts would ever enjoy, a theme common to both her and her husband. Over the years she has been posted to Kentucky, Texas, Belgium (where she often delivered babies because the military doctors assigned to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe usually arrived late), Virginia and Hawaii. Along the way she commanded the hospital at Fort Jackson, S.C.
“I was basically awestruck and humbled at what the Army was doing in medical care, and at the quality of the people. Civilians have little understanding of the military and what it does so well,” she said. “The degree of responsibility you are given draws you to stay with the military.”
Her favorite posting? “I enjoyed Hawaii the most because of the beautiful beaches and the climate, but travel all across Europe was also great,” she said.
Collins and Hughes met at Fort Stewart, Ga., and then again at Fort Jackson, S.C., some years ago and married in 2009. Hughes has a son and daughter, both in Texas, and three grandchildren.
Today, Hughes is a volunteer nurse at the VA Hospital in Northampton. Since September, Collins has been director for the Central Western Massachusetts Veterans’ Administration Healthcare System, which has locations in Worcester, Fitchburg, Springfield, Greenfield and Pittsfield. He is growing a mustache for “Movember” to support and promote awareness for cancer treatment among men.