LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- For the first time Kentucky Veterans Day Parade selected a woman veteran to serve as Grand Marshal.

That woman is Louisville native Captain Marj Graves, retired Army Nurse Corps.

"I was in a total state of shock. I'm honored but I'm also very humbled," Graves said. "There's a lot of lot of females that could have been asked. And you know, I just could hardly believe that I was given the honor."

Marj Graves was in her last year of nursing school in Louisville when an Army recruiter came to speak to her class. She passed her boards and then it was straight to basic training.

“And within just a couple of weeks I was on active duty," she said.

Four years later she was a Captain in the Nurse Corps and spent the majority of her time in orthopedics treating Vietnam soldiers who were home with injuries, sometimes gruesome ones.

“He had a horrible leg wound. And it was my first shock I guess in nursing because the inside of his wound was filled with maggots. And of course, it took everything I had not to pass out on the spot," she recalled.

She felt the call to take her training to where the fighting was happening, and she volunteered to go to Vietnam. 

“Oh, my father was not happy at all. You know, I could use an expletive, but he said you have got to be kidding me. He said, 'I can't believe that you would volunteer to go to a war zone,'“ she said.

This was back in 1971, and she was 24 years old.

“And maybe it was that Florence Nightingale feel that I could be the one that could make the difference and take care of these guys. And it was one of the best decisions I ever made,” Graves said.

She did a year-long tour and saw a variety of battle wounds come through the hospital but nothing could prepare her for when a helicopter crashed with 34 soldiers on board.

“Every one of them were burned beyond recognition,” Graves said.

She was sent to go through the remains with only two weeks left until she was going back home to the states.

"Trying to find dog tags, trying to find wedding rings, anything that we can do to identify who that person was so we could get the right person home to the loved ones," she said.

A nightmare she never wanted to speak into existence.

“I put that whole experience in the suitcase, turned the key on the lock, not to be opened again."

Fast forward 30 years, she never shared with anyone what had happened. She’d gotten married, they had two daughters together and she was working at UPS. In 2005, she was tasked with creating an emergency plan if a UPS plane went down with passengers on board. 

“The months that led up to that every time my phone rang at night I assumed I'm getting the call that we've had a crash," she said.

She had a family history of depression and was already seeking psychiatric out patient care when she started to get dark thoughts but she couldn’t shake the memories of her time in Vietnam.

"Every time I got my hands close to my face I could smell burned flesh and when I’d go out to the airport, which I did all the time for my job at UPS, and I’d smell jet fuel. And these guys' bodies were covered in jet fuel from the crash. And I mean I'm taking the spiral downward," Graves said.

The feelings becoming unbearable she decided to attempt to take her own life.

“I took the 18 Ambien in my hand thrown down my throat, drank something and immediately I'm saying 'Oh my god, what am I doing? I want to live, but I need help,'" she said.

The very next appointment after she recovered in the hospital, she told her psychiatrist everything.

And since then, she’s made it her mission to share her trauma and struggles with depression to anyone who wants to hear it.

"We all experience bad things in our lives, and we should be there for one another to help and to share and to care," Graves said.

And this Veterans Day she's excited to share this as she stands proud as the parade's Grand Marshal.

She said while her story has its dark spots, she doesn't regret serving.

"I do it all over again. Even in that last two weeks, has made me a better person," she said. "It's made me stronger."

She got to accompany Bob Hope and Sammy Davis Jr. on their visit to see the troops and even gave an IV to Jim Nabors when he got sick on his trip there.

"I couldn't believe that a small, just me being a hometown girl from Louisville, Kentucky, we'd be traveling with major stars," she said.

But the biggest delight of all came after the Courier Journal newspaper did a feature report about her and her service. A fellow Vietnam vet wrote her a letter and shared his gratitude for her time as a nurse. That man was Lt. Col. Bob Graves, Retired, her now husband.

"And you know this is before the TLC 90 Day Fiancé type of thing and very unusual that you would fall in love or even have a relationship with somebody through the mail," she said.

But in true, they fell in love as pen pals and just celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary.

"Bob always said I put a 'Want ad' in the newspaper and he answered the ad, that's how we got together," she said.

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