OLEAN — When U.S. Army Capt. Jane Boudin returned to Western New York after eight years of service, she didn’t get the welcome home most military veterans receive today. At the time, she didn’t think much of it.

“I had to sign myself out, and the man at the counter gave me my final pay,” she recalled.

Honorably discharged in 1975, Boudin, who worked as a nurse at several posts across the country and in Japan, said she walked through the airport and no one gave her a second look.

“There was nobody there,” she said. “There was nothing.”

Fifty years later, Boudin, 77, received that welcome home all veterans deserve as one of 35 women from World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War who took an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., sponsored by Buffalo-Niagara Honor Flight.

The Oct. 11 and 12 trip was the all-volunteer organization’s first-ever all-female mission to the nation’s capital. These 35 vets served in roles ranging from surgical nurse to meteorologist, and from aircraft maintenance to early computer work.

As they departed from the Buffalo Niagara International Airport that Saturday morning, there was a small group of people saying goodbye, but at their welcome home, Boudin received the surprise of a lifetime.

“When we came back, there were like 2,000 people in the airport. It was lined from the escalator all the way down and out,” she shared, tears in her eyes. “I thought, ‘My God, they’re here.’ They really do care.”

Jane Boudin (left) and Sgt. Seale Tuttle in 1967.

SPENDING MOST of her adult life in the Olean area, Boudin grew up in Cuba. After graduating from high school, she attended Roberts Wesleyan University in Rochester, studying medicine to become a nurse.

“When the recruiter came to the college campus, I thought the money would be good because they would pay for my college,” she recalled. “But the biggest thing was I would never leave Cuba if I didn’t do this — have someone push me somewhere. I’d be hiding out in Cuba Hospital for the rest of my career.”

As part of the ROTC program, Boudin graduated in 1969, received her Second Lieutenant bars and reported to Fort Sam Houston for basic training. She was then stationed at Fort Polk, now officially named Fort Johnson, in Louisiana for her first tour.

“I was there for about a year and a half, and then I went to Fort Ord, California, which was a really nice tour,” she said. “We were right on the beach.”

During her years in service, Boudin worked as a med-surg nurse, nurse supervisor and emergency room nurse at various points. While at Fort Devens in Massachusetts, she started the first nurse clinician program in the country after seeing plans to train nurses in the E.R. in more advanced medicine.

At the post, soldiers who were sick or needed medical attention would start coming into the clinic at 7 a.m., and their families would often be with them. Boudin said by 1 p.m., the families were still in the waiting area and usually fighting over the TV, and that gave her an idea.

“I sent them all a letter and told them from now on, you’re going to have a family doctor visit. You’ll be assigned a doctor and you’ll call for an appointment just like any other office, and it worked beautifully,” she said. “The nice thing in the Army is we didn’t need approval from the big boss. We just went and did it. If you have your Sergeant behind you, you’re a success.”

After a successful tour with this innovation at Fort Devens, Boudin received her first overseas assignment — Camp Zama, Japan. While there, she received the Army Commendation Medal for her work in pioneering the Army’s nurse clinician program.

“That’s what I’m proudest of, and it just spread through the world,” she said. “I was really fortunate. I gained rank real fast, and I made lots of friends.”

Boudin said she still keeps in touch with some of the folks she served with. She reconnected with one nurse she knew at Fort Dreven years later through Facebook.

FOR THE D.C. TRIP, Boudin said she saw a new release in the Times Herald about the Honor Flight looking for women to apply for the special trip.

“I said, ‘By God, I’m applying for that,’’ she recalled.

Allowed to bring a guardian escort, she asked her sister, Kathy Adams, to accompany her. Together, they visited many of the monuments and memorials around the National Mall built in honor of the veterans.

“In high school, we saw all the old monuments,” she said. “Now they’ve got all these new ones, and that’s where they took us.”

At the Vietnam Memorial, Boudin said she looked for and found the name of a fallen servicemember whose sister she is friends with at Eden Heights.

“I found it and I did a rubbing for her,” she said. “That was another highlight that I was really glad to do for someone.”

Other highlights included a special stop at the Military Women’s Memorial, the Changing of the Guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, which she said was especially impressive.

“We got to drive through it a little bit. I had no idea how huge it is,” she said.

After returning to civilian life, Boudin continued to work in the medical field, first for several months in the Olean area before heading out to California again, where she worked in the first computerized intensive care unit.

“That was really neat to learn everything was on the computer,” she said. “It helped a lot and saved a lot of lives.”

Returning to Olean again later, Boudin said she began working in hospice care, ultimately finding herself in the middle of HomeCare & Hospice’s development as a project manager.

“And various nursing jobs, and as head nurse at a couple of places,” she added. “I guess I’m a bit of a rolling stone.”

Boudin said she retired at 75 from the St. Elizabeth Motherhouse in Allegany. Now residing at Eden Heights, she said her military benefits are taking good care of her.

“It’s really been quite a career — more than most people,” she said. “I never thought that all this was in me.”