Janie A. Sinclair

Colonel Janie A. Sinclair, U.S. Army Nurse Corps (ret.), passed peacefully from this life on August 13, 2020, at the Army Residence Community in San Antonio, Texas. She lived a long and honorable life of service to her fellow citizens.

Janie was born on June 4, 1929, to Samuel and Christena Sinclair on the family farm near Strathclair, Manitoba, Canada. The eldest of four children, she learned from her parents, a wheat farmer and a school principal, the value of hard work, education, leadership and service to others.

After earning her Registered Nurse certification in Winnipeg in 1952 and nursing in a rural hospital for a year, Janie moved south to Minneapolis. She worked in the hospital operating room at the University of Minnesota and received her bachelor’s degree in nursing administration in 1957.

In 1960, Janie was commissioned into the Army Nurse Corps, launching what would be a distinguished 25-year career with the U.S. Army.

Her early assignments took her to Korea and Frankfurt, Germany. During the Vietnam War era, she was assigned to the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research (Burn Unit) at Brooke Hospital. There she led operating room nursing personnel, providing life-saving surgical care for survivors of thermal injuries and kidney failure. On a subsequent assignment as Chief Nurse of the operating room at Nurnberg, Janie and her nursing staff cared for soldiers injured during REFORGER exercises. She practiced and taught operating room nursing and led military operating room nurses in nearly all U.S. Army medical centers across the continental U.S.

Janie had 11 postings to 10 different medical facilities. They included, in order: Walter Reed General Hospital, Washington, D.C.; 121st Evacuation Hospital, Korea; Ireland Army Hospital, Fort Knox, Kentucky; 97th General Hospital, Frankfurt, Germany; Letterman General Hospital, San Francisco; Beaumont General Hospital, El Paso; Brooke General Hospital, San Antonio; ISR, Nurnberg Hospital, Nuremberg, Germany; and Madigan Army Medical Center, Fort Lewis, Washington. She retired from her final assignment as Chief Nurse at Brooke Army Medical Center in 1985.

Among her many honors, she was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Meritorious Service Medal. She also earned her master’s degree in nursing administration along the way. For COL Sinclair, however, it wasn’t the awards that counted as much as the knowledge that she and her nursing team had provided the best-possible care to the patients in their charge.

After retiring, Janie remained in San Antonio. She was a talented and prolific needlepoint artist, a voracious reader, a curious traveler and an adventurous cook who delighted in entertaining. Although she chose more than 65 years ago to make the United States her home, she continued to closely follow Canadian current events and even crop conditions in her native Manitoba.

Janie was predeceased by her brother Gordon Sinclair, her sister Margaret Hasiuk and her nephew Blair Hasiuk. She is survived by her brother Jim Sinclair and his wife, Haven, of Brandon, Manitoba; and nephews Edward Hasiuk, Darrell Hasiuk, Sam Sinclair, John Sinclair and Scott Sinclair and their families.

A committal service will be held on Tuesday, October 13, 2020, at 1:30 p.m. at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery (Shelter #3), San Antonio, Texas. For those who would like to view the recording of the service, please see below: