-Though nurses could be both male or female during the Vietnam War, many were dedicated young women who served in field hospitals aboard medical ships and aircraft, where they treated combat injuries and consoled the wounded.

Upon returning home, many of them faced hostile treatment or had their service outright denied by civilians and, sadly, veterans alike.

Because of that, they rarely spoke about their service.

-You didn't want to be known as a veteran.

When we were over -- at least, this was in '69 -- the incoming nurses would tell us, "As soon as you get stateside, take your uniform off.

You will not be welcomed at all."

-Coming back to a country that came against... not understanding how much they gave up, what they went through and their personal suffering, especially the ones that got wounded.

Vietnam was uncomfortable.

You can only talk to each other, and that's a long time to go without being able to express the things that we saw.

-Your sorrow.

-And the sorrow, yeah.

-The sadness... -Yeah.

-...about what happened.

Yeah.

I think the hardest part for us is not knowing did they live or die?

I mean, you poured so much love and effort and care.

-The Vietnam Memorial does it.

You just see those names.

-There's a lot of them on the wall that we tried, you know?

-Yeah.

-I put my hand on the wall, and I just started crying, and I kept saying, "I'm sorry."

-Yeah.

-"I am so sorry that we couldn't save them."

-I'm Stacy Pearsall, retired Air Force combat photographer, and I am very humbled to be joined by Edie Meeks, Linda Pugsley, and Jean Berkheiser, three veterans who are here to discuss what life was like as a nurse in Vietnam... and after action.

-♪ There will be light ♪ ♪♪ ♪ There is a road ♪ ♪ Marching on ♪ ♪ Coming home ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Major funding for After Action is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, the proud partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio, and by America's Vet Dogs.

♪♪ -Linda, Edie, Jeanne, welcome to LowCountry Acres.

I want to thank you for taking the time to come down here and talk to me about your experience not only in Vietnam, but what you're doing today.

I want to start out by chatting with you, going a little bit further back, maybe even before you became nurses.

What inspired you to want to become a nurse?

I want to start with you, Linda.

-Well, it was kind of unusual for me.

I've always wanted to be a nurse.

If someone asked me, you know, when I was six years old, "What did you want to be?"

I wanted to be a nurse.

And I thought about it... I think what happened was I was four and a half when I had my tonsils removed.

That was back in the day when they took everyone's tonsils out.

And after the anesthesia, which was ether... [ Chuckles ] ...um, I had thrown up in my little pediatric bed there, and the nurse -- I said, "I'm so sorry."

You know, I just thought I did something wrong.

She was so kind.

"No, no.

It's okay."

She cleaned everything up.

She didn't yell at me or anything.

I just think that that kindness... and that helping me maybe put a seed in my heart, because I've just always wanted to be a nurse and was for years and years, so... -Mm.

Edie?

-I've always wanted to be a nurse, and that's all I ever wanted to be.

And then I got into maybe fourth and fifth grade, and I decided maybe I wanted to be a policewoman -or a roller derby star... -[ Laughter ] -...because those gals were really tough.

I mean, they were great.

And then as life evolved, I decided nursing was probably the better bet for me.

-I wanted to be an airline stewardess so I could travel.

And at that time, it's such a long time ago, you had to be a nurse before you could be an airline stewardess.

-Really?

-True.

Way back.

-Oh, I didn't know that.

-Yeah.

See what you learn?

Anyway, so I said, "Okay, I'll be a nurse so I can be an airline stewardess."

-That is crazy.

-Well, they were hired for safety and for... -Oh.

-...really rather than service, so to speak.

But they did wear cute little caps and stuff, you know, which I thought was kind of cute.

But then I got into nursing, and what happened?

So then I thought, "Well, flight nursing is traveling," so there you go.

-Got it.

I want to also take an opportunity to go around and, uh, get your little backstories here.

Where are you from?

Why did you choose the branch of service you did?

And what inspired you to join the military?

-Uh, well, my dad was a Marine that was wounded in World War II, and my mom was in the Navy as a pharmacist's mate.

And that's how they met when he came back home and was at Portsmouth Naval Hospital.

And I'm the oldest of nine, and so I was the first one up.

So, uh... But we ended up, uh, after -- Soon after I was born, we moved to the Boston area because that's where my dad was from.

So I grew up in Dorchester, but my whole family, I think we all kind of were born... It's in the DNA for a servant heart, because it's teachers, nurses, law enforcement and military.

And I was -- I chose the Air Force.

Um, I think it chose me.

I was a nurse at Boston City Hospital, and one of the nurses that worked with one of the flight -- one of the surgeons there was in the Air Force Reserve.

He was a flight surgeon and she was a flight nurse.

And she said, "Pugsley, you'd really like this."

So I ended up joining and going into flight nursing and, uh, which I absolutely loved.

So I ended up staying in the 11 years.

Uh, I had two tours of duty in Vietnam.

Um, and then after I came back in -- I think it was '74 -- I came back in '70, went back in '72, uh, for the second tour in Vietnam.

I loved every minute of it.

I would have been in till they kicked me out.

But somehow, I don't know, about 1976, God got ahold of me and I went into ministry.

So I'm a chaplain in the Air Force Auxiliary right now.

So, um, just a long -- But I always look at it, it's kind of like a circle of life for me, dealing with their physical wounds as a young nurse and now dealing with their emotional wounds after the war.

It's kind of like a circle of life.

So just it's all good.

I'm still nursing, but in a little different way.

-Linda Pugsley served in the surgical units of Boston City Hospital in the '60s, where she treated gunshot- and stab-wound victims.

She ultimately joined the Air Force Reserves and became a flight nurse with the 34th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, in charge of moving wounded personnel out of Vietnam.

A few years after returning home, she made the choice to pursue a ministry career and was ordained in 1989.

She's now a lieutenant colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, where she serves as a chaplain providing ministry to veterans at various events.

-I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and went to nursing school in Rochester, Minnesota.

From there, I went up to North-Central British Columbia, where I worked in a 46-bed hospital.

And you did everything up there, and it was pioneer country.

I mean, people were coming and sawing down trees and building houses.

So that was interesting.

Then I went down to visit my brother Tom, who was in Hollywood, California, selling encyclopedias door to door.

And since he wasn't making any money... I decided I'd stay and get a job.

Tom and I were very close, and at that time he was drafted, so he went and he joined the Marine Corps.

And I thought to myself, "You know, if something happened to Tom, I would want somebody there who really wanted to be there," and so I joined the Army Nurse Corps.

And he was quite relieved because he -- I said, "Oh, Tom, I joined the Army Nurse Corps."

He said, "Thank God, you know, at least you won't be bossing me around," 'cause the Navy takes care of the Marines.

-[ Laughter ] -So he was really, really... So basic training comes, and you go to Fort Sam Houston, and the maid comes in and cleans your room every day.

And so I called my brother Tom, who had gone through Marine basic training, and I said, "I don't know what you were complaining about."

[ Laughter ] He couldn't believe our basic training.

But at that time, nurses really weren't soldiers.

We were women who were in the Army Nurse Corps to take care of the soldiers.

Today, the nurses are soldiers.

I mean, we were not allowed to carry weapons.

You could qualify in the M-16, which I did, because you figured if somebody comes in the door and patients are flat on their back, you want to be able to protect them.

So then I went to Vietnam for a year.

I was at 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon and 71st Evac in Pleiku and did intensive care nursing.

Then came back and also did intensive care nursing at Madigan General Hospital.

And then after that, I didn't want to ever see the Army ever again.

I didn't want to have anything to do with them.

I didn't want to talk about it.

I didn't want to see a veteran.

I didn't want to think about it.

You know, I would call Diane Carlson Evans, who was my hooch maid, good friend, and we'd never talk about it.

But finally, with the dedication of the Women's Memorial, it really started my healing.

-Mm-hmm.

-And even after that, it took years and years of just working at it.

-After Edie Meeks' brother was drafted into the Marine Corps, she was inspired to join the Army Nurse Corps in 1968, and she was deployed to Saigon in support of the Vietnam War just a few months later.

She worked in the intensive care units of the 3rd Field Hospital and the 71st Evac Hospital in Pleiku.

In 1970, she returned home and exchanged her military uniform for a nurse's one, which she wore for over 50 years.

♪♪ -I'm originally from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and went to nursing school in Reading, Pennsylvania, and when I graduated from nursing school, you had to practice -- I don't remember -- six or nine months before you could take state boards.

So one of my friends said, "Let's go to New York City to work."

Well, I was in a very small town and very small nursing school, so New York City was pretty exciting.

And we worked at the Veterans Hospital.

Well, everybody at the Veterans Hospital had been in the military, of course, and even the nurses.

Well, I was green.

I didn't even realize.

I knew the Army and Navy had nurses, but I didn't know the Air Force did.

I thought, "Oh, that sounds kind of interesting," you know?

Then I even saw their uniforms.

Looked pretty good to me.

-[ Laughter ] -Again, wanted to travel, so I said, "Why not?"

So I ran down to the recruiting thing and they said, "Yeah, we probably need a nurse."

You know, they weren't too excited about it.

In fact, they were so disinterested that I signed up and I never heard from them.

So I finally called them and I said, "Remember me?"

"Oh, yeah."

So anyway, I joined the Air Force and, um, spent 27 years in the Air Force.

But, um, I was in a few years and decided I'd be a hero and go to Vietnam.

After I went to flight school.

So, I got orders and I'm going to Vietnam, and all of a sudden, I got this notice saying, "Hello, you're going to Kansas City on recruiting."

I said, "What?"

They said, "We need recruiters."

Oh, I said, "Sorry, I'm going to Vietnam."

Well, you don't do that to the Air Force.

But then I spent a few years on recruiting, which I enjoyed, although it was during Vietnam, so things were a little iffy.

And then I finally got my orders back to go to be a flight nurse.

-So -- And I met Linda Pugsley.

-Yep.

-So we spent time together over there and, uh, quite an experience.

So, like I say, I had 27 years, and now I'm retired in San Antonio, Texas.

Perfectly happy.

-As an Air Force flight nurse, Jean Berkheiser provided in-flight medical aid to combat and non-combat casualties, as well as US prisoners of war released from captivity aboard the C-141 Starlifter aircraft from Vietnam to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.

Upon returning home from Vietnam, Jean chose to stay in service, where she nursed for 27 years and rose to the rank of colonel before retiring from service in 1989.

What inspired you to... want to volunteer to go to Vietnam in the first place, or even join the military during war?

-I think for me, I knew, um, it was really getting bad.

I went in '67, and by '68 was the Tet Offensive, and it was really getting bad.

And I thought, "I know how to do this and I know how to work with them," so that's kind of my impetus, because it had gotten so bad during that time frame and there were so many injured.

We were evacuating about 10,000 a month, I think, in November in the -- you know, in the fall of '68.

So, uh, that's what stirred me.

And so I volunteered to go to that unit.

And, um, and like I had said earlier, my hands were prepared for the technical things.

But when I came back to the unit, I taught our nurses.

When I came back to the unit, I said, "You're going to have to realize what's going on, so to be a little bit more prepared."

-For me, I thought I could handle it.

You know, I got a -- had a really good education because it was down at the Mayo Clinic and we had seen a lot of terrible things because people would come last minute to the Mayo Clinic to have things fixed.

But when I got over there, what I found was that it was nothing like... normal emergency room.

In the normal emergency room, everything makes sense.

The fat guy has a heart attack, and the kid with no helmet on has a head injury, and kid falling out of a tree broke his arm.

But over there, you had perfectly healthy young men being blown up.

And that, to me, was what was so horrifying about it.

It was so out of kilter for anything... You know, I'd seen people with terrible diseases, and that made sense.

But this total devastation to a human body for no reason except being blown up... And I think that was the hardest thing to adjust to, especially since most of the guys over there were between the ages of 18 and 23, and those were the ages of my two younger brothers, you know?

And so every kid that came in was mine, and you took it personally, and that was the thing that you really had to watch.

I was so filled with anger and rage, and I don't think I'd ever felt rage before, but it was just welled up in you when you would see these kids come in, that the Army was not valuing them, that the government was not val-- These are citizen soldiers.

These are not mercenaries that you've hired.

They're citizen soldiers, and they've done what you've asked them to do, and you haven't valued their bodies and who they are, 'cause every one of those kids was a person and had a family, and, you know... And even now, I mean, some of them are so fresh in my mind still.

I remember this one guy came in.

He was a captain... and it was at night, and I was the only nurse on 'cause the other nurse who was supposed to be on the unit with me, hadn't come back from R&R yet.

And... But anyway, the person who came in that I remember the most in that evening was the captain.

He was head of whatever squad or whatever it was, and his men loved him.

They all asked about him, and he was always saying, "No, no, no, take care of that guy first, that guy first."

And... he had a terrible abdominal injury, and he... died that evening.

He was 26 years old, and he had three kids.

-Mm.

-And your heart was just... -And then the rage comes.

-Yeah.

-You know, how dare they take this life from him?

-Mm-hmm.

-And so that was the difficult part.

So, about October I just had to shut down and just keep doing my job -and... -Yep.

-...and doing it the very best I could and trying not to lose... Well, you didn't lose.

I mean -- But every once in a while, it would peek up -and you'd just get so angry.

-Mm-hmm.

-What did you do to blow off steam?

-I drank.

-[ Laughter ] -We used the liquid anesthesia.

When you had a few hours, you just kind of danced the night away.

I was just -- I was telling the girls about one night I was, uh -- I had met up with this pilot a few times, you know, 'cause they'd go do their missions and we'd do our work, and we'd all end up at the officer's club in the evening, and so I'd be dancing and whatever.

And I said, "Oh, I kind of like this guy, you know?"

So we'd get together, and then one night I showed up at the old club ready, you know?

And his name was John.

And the guys, they're kind of sullen, and they said, "John was shot out of the sky and killed today."

You know, just like... It just rocks your world, you know?

But you can't -- you can't deal with it 'cause you got to go to work the next day and, um, you know, take care of them.

-So I actually was in the Philippines, and then they'd send us to Vietnam.

We'd spend weeks sometimes getting the patients ready to go out.

But most of our flights, we would have two nurses and three med techs -and up to 70 patients.

-Yeah.

-No doctors, nobody like that.

So I didn't get to interact as much as Edie did, which was terrible.

So I didn't get as emotionally attached, maybe you'd say.

You just didn't have time.

It wasn't that you didn't want to.

-Yeah, they moved fast.

-The airplanes were cold, dark, noisy.

They were cargo planes that we repositioned to put patients on it.

There were no places for patients on a place like that, but that's what you had to work with.

And you carried -- we called them knickerbockers, our own supplies.

We carried our own narcotics.

Can you imagine that nowadays?

[ Chuckles ] But we all had signed out for narcotics in case they needed them, you know, kind of thing.

So we were just kind of like, busy, busy, busy.

And I don't mean that we didn't feel for the patients, but you didn't have time to sit down and talk to them.

And you often wondered what happened to them -and things like that, but -- -Yeah.

I think our -- Yeah, our job was hard, you know, 'cause we were in what's called the casualty staging facility, the CSF.

So those are the ones being prepared to go out, and we would work with them.

On the ground, there are certain things you have to do.

You have to make out a load plan.

You know, the first on, last off.

So you have to do a lot of preparation to get them evacuated.

So you really didn't get to know them, and that was part of our hurt.

Did they make it?

Did they make it?

And not knowing if they did kind of took a toll on you.

And then I went home and had all this stupid, uh, you know, going on.

I thought, "My poor guys, they're being spit on and all..." You don't have no idea what they did over there.

I was so glad for Desert Storm.

It was an honoring again of the military.

Then Iraq and Afghanistan, it was an honoring of the military.

Even though the stuff gets messed up, the military was not come against like it was in Vietnam.

And that's -- That was a hard thing.

A lot of the guys are still dealing with that.

Um, the sacrifices that they made, like the sacrifices you're still doing for your service, people don't understand the depth of that, how your whole life... And because we dealt with them, it affected us and changed our lives too.

And there is a lot -- There's still a lot of that rage and that anger and stuff and just... -Yeah.

-I know.

-One of the things that we only -- I only heard about what happened to one patient that I took care of over there.

And actually he wrote us from, um, Washington where he was in the hospital to tell us he was okay.

He had come into us with a nick in his heart, and they had opened him right there, and they took care of it.

We had some terrific surgeons at 3rd Field Hospital.

And then he came to us, but he stayed with us for like three weeks.

-Oh, wow.

Yeah.

-So he got to know us.

And then we sent him home, and he wrote back -and he said he was doing fine.

-Oh, that's a blessing.

-But that was the only one I really knew makes it.

-Yeah.

Wow.

-You know, when we -- when we prepared for deployment, we went through all these, like, mission briefs and this is the climate of the country and this is what you should expect.

Of course, none of that ever really pans out the way it does.

-[ Laughter ] -But, um, as a woman, you know, you're probably very much a minority going downrange in Vietnam.

There weren't a lot of women going down there to begin with.

Walk me through.

What was, uh, your briefings like, uh, getting ready to go in country with a bunch of gentlemen?

-That was easy.

Nothing.

-Nothing?

Nothing.

-No, there was nothing.

-Give me the rundown.

You're packing your bags.

Uncle Sam's getting you ready to -- -"Make sure you have your uniforms."

-Yeah.

-They just put you on a plane.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-There was no -- -Literally no briefings at all.

-I think we got a couple shots.

I think we might've had two shots.

-Oh, yeah, you got a bazillion shots.

-They even gave you, like, plague shot.

-And for three days, your arms were like this.

-And now they even know the plague shot didn't work, but we got plague shot, what, every six months -so we wouldn't have plague.

-For your smallpox.

-Yeah.

-But at least there was such a thing as smallpox.

-I was the only female on the plane going over, and they just put you on a plane and said, "You're going to go over, and you're going to land.

Your orders will be there, and then you go do what you're supposed to do."

-Yeah, there's no briefing.

-Because the thing was, you didn't go as a unit.

You went, you were inserted, and that was the hard part for the guys, too, to have somebody all of a sudden inserted into their unit that used to work well together, but one of them was gone.

So now they've got somebody they have no idea what to do with or if you can trust them.

-When I even showed up, they didn't know I was coming, which really gives you a welcoming committee because the powers on high knew that things were changing.

So different units and my unit hadn't had a nurse in months.

So all of a sudden they said, "What are you doing here?"

-Yeah.

-Here I am.

-Mine was totally different because the 34th Air Evac was the reserve unit.

We went as a unit.

There were 135 of us in one aircraft, and we went over there.

Now, we scattered all over, saw each other, whatever, but our -- We were bonded like this 'cause we went as a unit, which is the stupidest thing to send people in individually, you know?

You should send them in as a unit.

And then we left as a unit.

-Well, there was one good point of the whole thing is that as people were being shipped out, they weren't allowed to take their open bottles of booze.

-So my room wound up... -[ Laughter ] So I wound up with maybe 54 bottles of hooch.

-Your hooch was full of hooch, is what you're saying.

-It did have its good points.

-Had its good points.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

So anyway... -Then you'd report it, and the, "oh, boys will be boys."

I mean, that was it.

You never had a -- You never had a say so.

-It was kind of crazy.

-Well, let's take a pause.

Let's take a time-out on the good old boys.

Yeah, okay, um, because I think this is important to talk about.

Um, you guys were in an environment that was obviously very male-dominated and in a -- in a climate that was difficult, um, especially when you're reporting to a... internal situation where... there's a chance that it's probably gonna go nowhere.

-Mm-hmm.

-Mm-hmm.

-What was that like for you?

Were there any sexual-harassment or, um, sexual violations or anything like that while you were in country?

There was for me in Saigon.

And the thing is that you didn't report it because... what are they gonna do?

You know, if they're going up the line -- And, actually, it was, uh, an Air Force officer.

And so they were not gonna take it to the Air Force, I was sure.

And, also, you worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

-Yeah.

-So you're sitting there saying, "Do I have time to try and work on this?"

No.

And because of the way it was back then, they wouldn't have done anything anyway.

It probably would have been my fault.

-Yeah, you led them on.

-Yeah.

-Yes.

What did you say?

-Right.

Right.

-Yeah.

-"How were you dressed?

What were you doing?"

And all this stuff.

-Yeah, it took years for me to remember, um, which my psychiatrist said was not unusual for... But you were just so busy, and you had to concentrate on what you were doing, so I think I probably just said, "I'll think about that later."

You know, and you just kept going and going and going, but there was no way that you could get that -- any kind of redress about it at all.

And the majority -- the vast majority was not from the enlisted.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-It was from the officers.

-Yeah.

-Do you think it was a power play, like they had been so indulged for so long?

-I think it was like a mindset of the time, really.

And that's what it was.

But it was -- it was demeaning.

-But for -- It was like a year out of time.

It was like you lived your life, and all of a sudden you had this box of a year, which didn't make sense at all.

It was so out of any context of anything you had ever lived.

And then you went back to this, what was supposed to be normal.

And I think that people did things in that year that they never would have done.

They were away from home.

It was like a living nightmare, I thought.

-You were hoping you're gonna live, you weren't gonna get blown up.

-Yeah, and -- and you just kept going through that year.

And some people felt a freedom that they had never known before and did things that they probably would never do at home.

Like -- We talked about this before.

My Lai massacre was a terrible thing.

And I was -- When I first heard about it, I thought, "Doesn't surprise me.

This I could see happening."

Because it was so bizarre over there.

If you ever saw "Apocalypse Now," the movie... -Mm-hmm.

-...it wasn't -- It wasn't the "Apocalypse Now," but the feeling that that movie gave you of how bizarre and insane it was, that was true.

It was bizarre and insane over there.

It was so out of anything that you had in context with your life.

I mean, when you saw the wounds that we saw, you don't see those in the emergency room.

You don't see them anywhere.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-You know, and if you see something like that, it might be a gunshot wound.

-Mm-hmm.

-You know?

But it's not being blown up.

Which is -- And it's not this kid that comes in with a bewildered look in his eye like, "What's happening?"

-You talk about the movies.

I think for me two movies that really show what it was like was "Platoon" and "MASH."

[ Chuckles ] The "MASH" TV show would show the camaraderie of the medics and kind of like the -- we weren't all straight-laced, you know, you know, this kind of stuff.

It was really pretty loose because we had so much bigger a mission to do.

I remember one time at Da Nang when Marble Mountain -- We called it Monkey Mountain.

And I was sitting on top of a cracker box, you know, watching the tracers hit the mountain.

And it just so pierced my heart because I thought, "If we don't kill them, they will kill us."

But that's somebody's father, somebody's brother, somebody's husband, too.

And it's like -- It just really, really touched my heart just how awful this is.

Now, we're taking care of them, but they're dying, too.

Some things you would cry about or mourn or be sad about because of what you saw, but you couldn't because you had to keep functioning, so you'd keep stuffing it down.

I had shared before.

I didn't cry for like 15 years after I came home.

And I was in a research group, and I said, "Oh, I'm normal.

Count me on your normal."

You know, yeah, right.

But, um, the shrink was talking to me, and I was crying.

After about just 15 minutes, I'm crying.

I hadn't cried.

And I'm mourning like someone had just died or something.

I'm just -- I'm really going through all this.

And I said, "I thought I was fixed!

Why am I still crying?!"

And she said something so important to me.

She goes, "Because you're crying, you are fixed.

You still feel this.

You're alive."

Oh.

"It's okay to cry?"

You know?

"Yeah.

It's okay to cry."

It's a crazy little world that lives in there.

-I didn't cry for years.

-Yeah.

-And I think it's because I was afraid that if I started... -Yeah, you wouldn't stop.

-...I would never stop.

-I know.

Yeah.

-And I really felt I would never stop.

-Yeah.

-The Vietnam Wall did it to me.

-Yeah.

-That's a long time between when I left to the... But I -- And I didn't think it was, but I went up to that wall, and, phew, that's where I lost it.

-Talk to me a little bit about what that experience was like for you.

-I guess I knew it was gonna be emotional, but I had no idea.

That black granite wall.

That is just a magnificent memorial.

And I don't know if everybody feels that or just Vietnam veterans, but, man, they couldn't have done anything to improve on that thing, you know?

And you just see those names.

-Yeah.

-And, you know, I look at it, and I might not know John Doe, but, phew, you know?

And then when they have all those little trinkets or, you know, a bottle of whiskey or... -A note from a child that they never saw grow up.

-Wow.

That's amazing.

-For me, it's always the magnitude of the numbers.

You know?

What was that all about?

And then we just left, you know?

Okay, we're gonna have a peace treaty.

How can you have a peace treaty?

The enemy still there, and they're gonna kill the people down here.

Three million died after we left.

You know, just -- I think the thing that hits me the most with the wall is the numbers there.

And then also there's a lot of them on the wall that we tried, you know?

-Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

-I think, uh -- I think it hurts that they all didn't make it, you know, but we tried.

-Mm-hmm.

-I can remember one night I had -- I was in Washington for business and thought, "I'll just go to the Wall."

I had never done this before.

-[ Chuckles ] -I'd been to the Wall but not alone and at night.

-Yeah.

-And I went, and I knew where the guys were from the time that I had been in Vietnam.

And I stood there and I put my hand on the Wall, and I just started crying.

And I kept saying, "I'm sorry."

-Yeah.

-I am so sorry... -Mm-hmm.

-...that we couldn't save them, that we couldn't protect them.

-Mm-hmm.

-That, to me, was... my job, you know?

-Yeah.

-I was supposed to protect my brothers.

-Yeah.

-I know the brothers don't feel that way about it.

And I couldn't protect these guys from this horrible war.

-Do you know what I think is very interesting?

Is that...even now... We're getting older, and there's few of us left.

But if I'm with a group, and all of a sudden, maybe one of the gentlemen had been in Vietnam, and we kind of start talking a bit, and his wife will say, "He never talks to me about that," or, "I never heard that," or, "I didn't know that."

And even though I didn't know him and we weren't even there at the same time, there's just something about being in Vietnam... -Mm-hmm.

...that you're brothers and sisters.

You're so close.

-If you're a Vietnam veteran, you speak a certain language that nobody else speaks.

-Mm-hmm.

-You know, I could talk forever, and my sister would say, "Well, that's fine."

And I had a friend that was very, very close to me, and she kept saying, "Oh, get over it."

-Yeah.

-You know?

And so... But they don't -- they don't know.

-Yeah.

-And that's okay.

That's all right.

Because I can't expect those people to know.

-Mm-hmm.

-Because they weren't there.

-Well, it's not just not knowing what you experienced.

It was coming back to a country that came against.

-Hm.

-I mean, it came against those that were there, not understanding how much they gave up, what they went through and their personal suffering, especially the ones that got wounded.

And, um, just -- You couldn't talk to people about it.

I think, for those reasons, Vietnam was uncomfortable, you know?

Just, uh, you know -- So you can only talk to each other.

And that's a long time to go without being able to express, uh, some of your anger, your frustration, the things that we saw... -Your sorrow.

-And the sorrow.

-The sadness... -Yeah.

-...about what happened.

-Yeah.

But I did have some fun times, too.

-Listen, I've been to combat, so I know it isn't all like -- -Mm-hmm.

-A lot of bad crap happens, and I know this, but there are a lot of fun times that happen, too.

-One of your first nights, they take you to the officers' club and they hand you a leather menu.

I said, "This isn't gonna be so bad."

I felt like Private Benjamin, you know, when she joined.

But anyway -- [ Laughter ] I said, "Ooh!

I'll have the ham steak."

"Oh, so sorry.

No ham steak."

I said, "Oh.

Pork chops."

Well, you get to about the third item, and they don't have it.

And finally, everybody around the table is laughing.

The waitresses were taught to hand you a menu.

And everybody else knew that you just say, "What do you have?"

And they'd say, "Meatloaf."

-Yeah, whatever... -So you'd have meatloaf.

-Whatever you got.

-But the newbies always got so impressed.

-Spam.

We've got Spam.

-[ Laughs ] Spam.

-And you could be there for two years, and you always got that menu, but, you know, so... And like I said, everybody around, they'd just sit there waiting for it, you know?

"This is -- We got the newbie here," you know?

-That's hilarious.

-Yeah.

So, anyway, every time -- Even now when I go to a restaurant and they hand me a menu, I almost start laughing.

Like, "What do you have?"

-Yeah.

"What do you have?"

-Uh-huh.

-Yeah.

One time, I was out with one of the nurses.

And we were out -- I think we were out swimming at night, which we shouldn't be, and... Because they had these, uh, guard shacks, you know, and they'd shoot something in the water, and I would -- I told the guys, you know.

Oh, 'cause we said -- We didn't have any bathing suits.

"Oh, that's no problem.

You can wear one of our T-shirts."

So we wore -- Knowing as soon as we got wet, you know, we got the wet T-shirt contest here.

And, uh, so I said, "But what if they see us?"

"Oh, no.

Just dive under."

You know?

Whatever.

"When the spotlight comes on, just dive under."

Crazy!

-Just go with it.

-Hurry up!

-And finish up, you know?

Just -- Too funny sometimes.

-One of the times that my roommate, Judy, and I in Saigon got in trouble was we flew up when we went from second lieutenant to first lieutenant.

And you're supposed to give your own party when you go to a different rank.

So the two of us were gonna put on a party.

So we did.

And it was wonderful.

And we invited all the corpsman and all the lab -- Everybody, you know, that worked with us.

The next day, we were hauled into the colonel's office.

[ Laughter ] He said, "You had enlisted men at your party."

-Oh!

Really?

-And we said, "Yeah?"

-"We don't know anybody else."

-That's right!

I said, "How could you possibly..." I mean, you're a family.

-Yeah.

-That's like saying, okay, we can't invite Uncle George.

-Yeah.

-You know?

So we didn't care.

I mean, what are you gonna do, send me to Vietnam?

-Yeah.

-That kind of... -Yeah, we used to say that.

"What are you gonna do, send me to Vietnam?

I'm already here."

-But we all had a great time, and it was just the best.

-Um, so, Jean, talk to me a little bit about what it was like to, um -- to do the POW flights.

-It was amazing what they knew about those POWs.

They had tailors that worked 24 hours a day getting uniforms ready for all services for all of them and things.

Cooks worked 24 hours a day.

Had ice cream, anything they wanted, kind of thing.

But the flights themselves, at first, they weren't sure what to expect.

The psychologists and all that said, "Oh, they might be really crazy."

At first, they were quiet, and they actually were quiet when they sat for takeoff.

As soon as that plane took off, they went crazy.

There was no putting them down with seatbelts, let's say.

But the excitement was unbelievable.

And what an experience.

-Okay.

Talk to me a little bit about, um, homecoming.

You know, you're overseas.

You serve in Vietnam.

A year-long.

Some of you did two tours.

You come home to a nation.

Obviously, the climate wasn't great for men.

Um, being a woman, a lot of times, they don't even know you're there.

So, uh, you probably had to explain to them, "Women were there.

I was there.

I served."

How hard was it to have to constantly explain that you were a nurse in Vietnam, you served, you were in uniform, blah, blah?

Did you even bother after a while?

-No.

You never told anyone.

-You didn't tell anybody.

-Not a soul.

-People didn't -- If it was your family or your friends that knew it, but otherwise you didn't announce it.

-Otherwise you didn't say anything.

And like I was sharing earlier, even today, you can be with a bunch of guys that have, you know, Vietnam hats on.

I can have a shirt on or -- I don't have that shirt on now.

But I could have a shirt on.

People will walk right past me and go, "Thank you for your service," and, "Welcome home," and stuff.

And the guys would go, "Excuse me?

You walked right past her.

She was there, too."

It was like...the concept wasn't there that we were -- that the women were there.

-Unless they were -- If they were injured.

-Yeah.

-They have a big part of their heart for that, for the nurses.

But unless they were injured... -They call us the angels.

-Yeah.

-"Oh, it's one of the angels are here."

And it's a big reunion and a hug.

You don't even know who they are, but you could have taken care of them, and it's just really awesome.

-But, yeah, you didn't announce it.

You didn't do big... -Why didn't you?

-Because there was no need to get into the hassle.

When I came back, which was in '69, we were told by the incoming nurses that as soon as you got stateside, you took your uniform off and you wore civilian clothes.

You never wore your uniform anywhere because your reception would be terrible.

I can remember, actually, before I went to Vietnam, my brother happened to be also stateside, and I was gonna meet him at a local pancake house or something, and he was gonna be late, so he called the pancake house to leave a message that he was gonna be late, and he said, "Be sure and tell Lieutenant McCoy."

So they announced this over the intercom.

Everybody booed.

-No!

-Whoa.

-Yeah.

-Really?

It was a very sad time, I think, in our country to not honor the military.

-Mm-hmm.

-How were you received and integrated amongst your fellow Vietnam veterans, the male counterparts?

-I had absolutely no problems.

-They've always been... -No problems.

-In fact, as a nurse -- I don't know how it would have been as a line officer or something.

-Yeah, that's true.

-That's a whole lot different.

But, boy, as a nurse -- I mean, everybody -- I think most people like nurses.

-Yeah.

-You know?

So, uh -- Yeah.

-Any of the organizations... -Yeah, they're very receptive.

-Except when I first came back.

The VFW.

I went to join the VFW.

It's called Veteran of Foreign Wars.

And I was in Vietnam.

So I went and they said, "Oh, no, the women can't join.

You have to join the auxiliary."

-But they didn't let the men join, either.

-Oh, really?

I didn't realize that.

-Yes, yes.

-But then later, they changed that, so... I'm a life member of the VFW now.

-I'm curious.

Are there times where -- You talked about kicking the can.

Like, for me, there are days, certain anniversary dates of the year where I have to wake up and make a concerted effort that I -- that I want to, like, live my life for those who can't live.

Um, what are those days like for you?

What keeps you positive?

What are you doing for yourself these days?

-Uh, it was, uh, Christmas of '68, and, um, I was at Tan Son Nhut, and we had a big Christmas party planned, and we had gotten my brother who was stationed at Benoit at the same time I was there.

So we had gotten him over.

And so we were gonna have this nice big party planned.

Everyone's all happy.

And so I was walking across the courtyard, and over there was the morgue.

And one of the ambulances comes in, and, um, they took out the body of a young soldier, and he'd been laying in the rice paddies for quite some time.

But, you know, they went back to get him.

It just -- It was so sad.

His skin was split and all this stuff, you know, and it just struck me so terribly that, uh -- that was the Christmas present that someone was going to get that year.

And so every Christmas is kind of, like, wrecked for me.

You know, just that memory comes back so powerfully, the overwhelming feeling of such sadness at this time of year, which was important to me.

And I couldn't do anything with it because I had to go right over there and have a Christmas party.

We had made little aprons.

You know, "Christmas 1968."

And we were gonna try and make all the guys happy and everything, so that was difficult.

For me, I think I just, um -- Physical activity really helps me to, uh, stay sane.

And, um, I think a lot of us still look for that intensity.

Bungee jumping and whitewater rafting and running marathons and hiking on the trail and... Um, I don't know.

I guess that helps me to get away and just think of something else.

-Thinking about Christmas, I'll never forget.

Um, and it was right around Christmas that we had a whole -- We were very busy, and I had to run over to the operating room to get some supplies for us.

And there on the stretcher was this guy.

He looked like he was from Minnesota, which is where I grew up.

Blond.

Tall.

Lying on the stretcher.

And I thought, "I'll go over."

And so I -- "Are you okay?"

Well, he was dead.

-Oh, honey.

-He had bled out on the way in.

He looked fine.

-Yeah.

-He looked fine.

-Mm-hmm.

-And it was like -- But he's not there.

-Yeah.

-And it was so -- I mean, he could have gone to school with me.

I mean, the feeling is so overwhelming that... I can remember thinking, you know -- This was when the kids were younger.

And thinking to myself, "You know, if I just drove off the road, I wouldn't ever have to deal with this again."

-Oh, yeah.

Wow.

Glad you didn't.

-And then I thought, "Well, but I can't do that.

I got two kids at home."

You know?

But you really felt then it would just be over.

And the thing that I learned was, through a lot of spiritual work and 12-step work, which is -- I'm in a program in.

Is that I will be feeling this for the rest of my life.

I will feel sad about this for the rest of my life.

And that's okay.

-That's okay.

-I am mourning these boys that I knew, that I saw, that I touched.

And that's okay.

Because they're worth mourning.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-And that I don't have to get over it.

-Mm-hmm.

Amen.

-I can just live with it.

It doesn't have to be overwhelming for me.

-Mm-hmm.

-But every once in a while, it'll come up, and then I'll just feel so sad and I'll cry or -- Sometimes music does it.

I'll hear a song that I heard back in the '60s, and it'll just trigger it, and... all of a sudden, the tears are popping out.

And that's okay.

I used to think I had to get over it... -Yeah.

-...you know, and not have to deal with this ever again.

But that's not the way it works.

So what I decided was that all of these guys are my family... and I can mourn the members of my family for the rest of my life.

-Uh, you know, how come I'm still crying?

You know, it's because you are fixed.

Because you're still crying, you feel this.

You're alive.

So we're alive.

It's just that it's a scar now.

It's not a bleeding wound like it was earlier, but it's a scar and it's still there, and you're never gonna forget.

And it's okay.

It's okay to cry.

-I think that's why you don't talk to -- talk to people "outside," so to speak, because you don't want them to say, "Hey, that's a long time ago," or, "You're still...?"

You know, "You're not over there."

-"What's your problem?"

-So you don't want to be put d-- Yeah.

You don't want to be put down.

So it's probably better not to say anything rather than go through that.

-Oh.

-Yeah.

-I've been very fortunate, I think.

Maybe I'm suppressing it.

I don't think so.

But I kind of -- I mourned at the time, but I guess that helped kind of getting over it a bit.

And I really try to look back at the good times... -Yeah.

-...the people I met or different things they said.

Or can you imagine so-and-so?

You know, or whatever.

-Like when we stood outside the... -I kind of -- I try to hold on to the humor, if you will.

I mean, and there was humor, like we said.

-When we stood outside the nurses' quarters and the guys were coming by in the APC.

We planned this one night, and we stood out there and said, "Remember what you're fighting for!"

-Wait.

What's this gesture?

Elaborate.

-We opened up our shirts and said, "Remember what you're fighting for!"

[ Laughter ] Yeah, right.

-Um, will somebody ever telling you, "Welcome home," ever be enough?

-No.

-Too little, too late.

I can remember the very first time someone told me, "Welcome home."

I received a letter from one of my brother's friends because my brother had been talking to him, saying I had been in Vietnam.

And he wrote me a little letter and said, "Thank you for your service."

And at the bottom, he said, "Welcome home."

I wept.

-Aww!

-No one had ever told me.

This was years later.

No one had ever said, "Welcome home."

-Ohh.

-I mean, I tell people, "Thank you," when they say, "Welcome home."

"Thank you."

"Welcome home, welcome home."

But it's like... It's like someone going to a funeral, you know, and then 10 years later, they come and say, "I'm sorry for your loss."

-I know.

-What?

Where were you then?

You know?

So it just kind of -- I appreciate -- I appreciate... -I think it makes them feel better... -Yeah.

-...than us.

-Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

You hit the nail on the head.

-Give me an example of... what can we as a society do, first of all, to not make the same mistakes?

But what can we do to at least make up for... -You'll never make up, but I think your -- people have learned.

-Yes.

-So now, when the kids come back or the people come back from Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever, it's not like it's their fault.

They're welcomed back.

And then some of the areas, I know, like -- It might be an afterthought, but they'll include the vets from Vietnam if they're gonna have some ceremony or something or another parade or whatever.

But I think that part of it -- I'm so thankful that they don't have to go through what we went through.

-Yeah, you can't make up for what happened to us.

-It's over and done.

-But what you can do is always honor the military.

I can remember a Lowe's parking lot when they first put up that veteran parking.

I wept.

-I would say that that's the key, is that there's nothing they can do to fix what happened, but the key is to never forget, to go forward... -Yeah, don't ever let it happen again.

-All of our brothers and sisters who are serving.

And even though they're little brothers and sisters.

-[ Laughter ] -Babies.

-Yes, that's right.

That's right.

But that, as civilians, their job is to care for those who are caring for them... -Yeah.

-...that they should not just leave them out high and dry.

-Mm-hmm.

-You know?

You're asking the utmost of these people.

Not only physical, but mental, emotional, spiritual.

You're asking everything from these people.

And then not to give back?

No, that doesn't work.

-Yeah.

-And I think one of the things -- Well, the Vietnam vets have done a lot of stuff, you know, fighting for better health care and the whole thing.

But one of the things that the Vietnam vets have really fought for is recognition of other soldiers.

-Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You know, the soldiers going forward, that -- We really don't want that to ever happen to anyone else again.

-Hm.

I want to give you each an opportunity to, um... to maybe give some feedback or a shout-out to your fellow nurses, to your fellow Vietnam veterans, whatever you want.

Um, so I'm gonna start with you, Miss Jeanne.

-It's an honor to know all of them to say -- And there's not too many of us left.

This is such a treat to get together with people like this.

And really, Edie, you're wonderful.

Even though you were Army, I love you.

-Yes, we know.

We still love you.

-And to see old Pugsley again.

I mean, what can I say?

-Yeah.

-[ Laughs ] -Edie, do you have any shouts out to your fellow nurses?

-Oh, boy.

A lot -- Some of the nurses have been through an awful lot.

The nurses that were over there, every one that I have spoken to has said that they would do it again in a heartbeat.

-That's true.

-Yeah, I know.

-No matter what the trauma was that they went through or what they saw or what they had to handle, they said they'd do it again.

It changes your life 100%.

Nothing is spared.

But we'd do it again in a heartbeat.

-True.

True.

-Yeah.

I'd like to give a big shout-out to the 34th Air Evac.

That was the Texas unit that I went over with.

And, um, there's quite a few of them left, and they're just as crazy today as they ever were.

And to the 72nd Air Evac up in, uh -- in, uh, McGuire Air Force Base.

That's where I went back for my second tour.

So they were a great bunch of people, too.

So, um... And, uh -- and all the nurses that we served with and ran into and just -- There were so many.

Um, you didn't see the struggle then, but you know they're having it now, so wherever they are, you know, just keep hanging in there.

And, uh -- and I hope that, uh, you just let God get into your heart and get you straightened out.

But you just love each other 'cause you know what you gave up and what you did.

So the shout-out goes to these two right here with me, too, as well as those that I mentioned, so... -For all the health-care providers out there in Vietnam who helped those get home, thank you.

For all the nurses out there who are the unsung heroes, thank you.

For all the women who are in country who served during the Vietnam War, thank you.

And for you ladies for coming here to share the stories on behalf of all the women who served in Vietnam.

Thank you.

And thank you for your service, ladies.

Thank you so much.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-♪ There will be light ♪ ♪ There is a road ♪ ♪ Marching on ♪ ♪ Coming home ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪