Douglas was given an assignment in 1916 to write a story on the first woman to join the US Naval Reserve from Miami. When the woman did not show up for the interview, Douglas found herself joining the Navy as a Yeoman (F) first class. It did not suit her; she disliked rising early and her superiors did not appreciate her correcting their grammar as a typist, so she requested a discharge and joined the American Red Cross, where she was stationed in Paris.[24] She witnessed the tumultuous celebrations on the Rue de Rivoli when the Armistice was signed,[25] and she cared for war refugees; seeing them displaced and in a state of shock, she wrote, "helped me understand the plight of refugees in Miami sixty years later".[26]