Mary F. Cannon (1921-2012) of Chicago, Illinois, was stationed in Korea while a member of the Army Nurse Corps from 1951 to 1953 and in Vietnam during her service with the Navy Nurse Corps from 1958 to 1974. Mary Ford Cannon was born in Chicago, Illinois, in February 1921. She attended Catholic schools and graduated from St. Aquinas Dominican School in 1938.

She then enrolled in nursing school at Little Company of Mary Hospital, graduating in 1941, and stayed on there. Cannon then worked at Cook County Hospital while attended graduate training there, and later earned a bachelor's degree in nursing from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. From 1942 to 1945, Cannon worked at St. Francis Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii.

After another stint at Little Company of Mary Hospital, Cannon joined in the Army Nurse Corps. She was sent to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, for training and then was assigned to Camp Polk, Louisiana. In 1951, she was sent to Korea, where she worked in an evacuation hospital outside Taegu, South Korea; a POW camp in Pusan; and a MASH unit in northern South Korea. Upon returning stateside in 1953, Cannon was stationed at Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Colorado. Cannon then left active duty to pursue a master's degree in education at Indiana University. After graduating, she returned to nursing at Mary Hospital.

In January 1958, Cannon transferred from the army reserve to the Navy Nurse Corps. She was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes, serving as an instructor in the training center in 1961. Cannon then served as an instructor at the women officers school in Newport, Rhode Island, and at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. In August 1967, Cannon was sent to Vietnam and assigned to the station hospital at Da Nang. She returned to the United States the following year and was stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as chief nurse.

Cannon was stationed at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Virginia, when she retired in 1974. Cannon eventually settled in Southern Pines, North Carolina where she died on 19 August, 2012.