Vietnam War Nurses

Eighteen nurses who served in the United States military nurse corps during the Vietnam War present their personal accounts in this book. They represent all military branches and both genders. They served in the theater of combat, in the United States, and in countries allied with the U.S. They served in front line hospitals, hospital ships, large medical centers and small clinics. They speak of caring for casualties during a conflict filled with controversy—and of patriotism, of the nursing profession, of travel and the adventure of friendship and love.

Norman tells the dramatic story of fifty women—members of the Army, Navy, and Air Force Nurse Corps—who went to war, working in military hospitals, aboard ships, and with air evacuation squadrons during the Vietnam War. Here, in a moving narrative, the women talk about why they went to war, the experiences they had while they were there, and how war affected them physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

This book provides an oral history of women who served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War. It follows the trajectory of eight women’s lives from their decision to become nurses, to surgical and evacuation hospitals in Vietnam, and then home to face the consequences of war on their personal and professional lives. It documents their lived experience in Vietnam and explores the memories and personal stories of nurses who treated injured American soldiers, Vietnamese civilians, and the enemy. Their voices reveal the physical and emotional challenges, trauma, contradictions, and lingering effects of war on their lives. Women in the U.S. Army in Vietnam feared the enemy but also sexual violence and harassment: the experiences this book documents also shed light on the extent of historical sexual abuse in the military.

Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Vuic allows the nurses to tell their own captivating stories, from their reasons for joining the military to the physical and emotional demands of a horrific war and postwar debates about how to commemorate their service. Vuic also explores the gender issues that arose when a male-dominated army actively recruited and employed the services of 5,000 women nurses in the midst of a growing feminist movement and a changing nursing profession. Women drawn to the army's patriotic promise faced disturbing realities in the virtually all-male hospitals of South Vietnam. Men who joined the nurse corps ran headlong into the army's belief that women should nurse and men should fight.

Winner, 2010 Lavinia L. Dock Award, American Association for the History of NursingAn American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year in History and Public Policy “‘I never got a chance to be a girl,’ Kate O’Hare Palmer lamented, thirty-four years after her tour as an army nurse in Vietnam. Although proud of having served, she felt that the war she never understood had robbed her of her innocence and forced her to grow up too quickly. As depicted in a photograph taken late in her tour, long hours in the operating room exhausted her both physically and mentally. Her tired eyes and gaunt face reflected th e weariness she felt after treating countless patients, some dying, some maimed, all, like her, forever changed. Still, she learned to work harder and faster than she thought she could, to trust her nursing skills, and to live independently. She developed a way to balance the dangers and benefits of being a woman in the army and in the war. Only fourteen months long, her tour in Vietnam profoundly affected her life and her beliefs.” Such vivid personal accounts abound in historian Kara Dixon Vuic’s compelling look at the experiences of army nurses in the Vietnam War. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Vuic allows the nurses to tell their own captivating stories, from their reasons for joining the military to the physical and emotional demands of a horrific war and postwar debates about how to commemorate their service. Vuic also explores the gender issues that arose when a male-dominated army actively recruited and employed the services of 5,000 nurses in the midst of a growing feminist movement and a changing nursing profession. Women drawn to the army’s patriotic promise faced disturbing realities in the virtually all-male hospitals of South Vietnam. Men who joined the nurse corps ran headlong into the army's belief that women should nurse and men should fight. Officer, Nurse, Woman brings to light the nearly forgotten contributions of brave nurses who risked their lives to bring medical care to soldiers during a terrible—and divisive—war.

It was 1969 and the war in Vietnam was at its height. At the time, author Bernadette J. Harrod was twenty-four years old and a full-fledged operating room nurse. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy, she volunteered her services and became a member of the Army Nurse Corps stationed on the front lines at Phu Bai, Vietnam, a forward base camp in the demilitarized zone. In Fort Chastity, Vietnam, 1969, she shares her story of what nursing was like in a combat zone, standing covered in mud and blood, sweat and tears, serving her country in a war-torn jungle far away from home. Harrod describes working twelve-hour days, six days a weekmore when there was a pushoperating on wounded soldiers who had suffered massive injuries. Saving life and limb was the prime mission of the operating room nurses. Harrod tells how she was ill prepared to handle the horror all around her. After fourteen months in a blood bath of hell, now considered a combat veteran, she was sent home. With poetry and letters written to home included, Fort Chastity, Vietnam, 1969, offers a firsthand look at the war and its aftereffects from the perspective of both a nurse and a woman caught in the trauma of war.

In 1983, when Evans came up with the vision for the first-ever memorial on the National Mall to honor women who’d worn a military uniform, she wouldn’t be deterred. She remembered not only her sister veterans, but also the hundreds of young wounded men she had cared for, as she expressed during a Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.: “Women didn’t have to enter military service, but we stepped up to serve believing we belonged with our brothers-in-arms and now we belong with them at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. If they belong there, we belong there. We were there for them then. We mattered.” In the end, those wounded soldiers who had survived proved to be there for their sisters-in-arms, joining their fight for honor in Evans’ journey of combating unforeseen bureaucratic obstacles and facing mean-spirited opposition. Her impassioned story of serving in Vietnam is a crucial backstory to her fight to honor the women she served beside. She details the gritty and high-intensity experience of being a nurse in the midst of combat and becomes an unlikely hero who ultimately serves her country again as a formidable force in her daunting quest for honor and justice.

From the bestselling author of Bush Nurses and Nurses of the Outback comes this collection of compelling and moving stories of our heroic nurses in the Vietnam War Being a nurse always requires a cool head, a steady hand and an open heart. But if you're working in a war zone, the challenges are much harder. When Australia joined the Vietnam War, civilian and military nurses were there to save lives and comfort the wounded. With spirit and good humour, they worked hard and held strong, even though most of them were completely unprepared for the war before they landed in the middle of it. Working incredibly long hours and surrounded by chaos and turmoil, these brave nurses and medics were integral to our war effort. These fifteen stories show a side to the Vietnam War that has received little recognition but played an important part in shaping Australia's presence in the war. From flying with critically wounded Australian soldiers out of turbulent war zones, to being held at gunpoint, the compassion, courage and grace under fire in Our Vietnam Nurses will inspire and astound.