A HEALING FORCE
“In Pleiku, the sound was faint at first, then gradually grew louder; a medevac chopper somewhere in the night sky,” writes Diane Carlson Evans, a former Army Nurse Corps captain and the founder of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, in her book Healing Wounds. “For grunts, the sound was a benevolent god with rotor blades; for nurses, an adrenaline-pumping bird that brought us merciless, soul-harrowing work.”
For nurses in Vietnam that work occurred in Army field evacuation, surgical and MUST (Medical Unit, Self-contained Transportable) hospitals, on Navy hospital ships and aboard Air Force helicopters and planes. The average age of nurses was 23. About 65 percent had less than two years of experience, and 79 percent were women. They served in both active duty and reserve units. There was a range of tour lengths for nurses, although Army nurses, like other soldiers, served one-year tours.
Medical facilities were frequently near supply depots and airfields—targets for enemy fire, which could come from any direction at any time. Some hospitals suffered significant damage from shelling. Guards were on patrol 24/7, and barbed wire encircled the compounds. Nurses also had to deal with the loss of electricity, a lack of operating tables and shortages of supplies and equipment.
They responded with resourcefulness and creativity. Tables were constructed with discarded lumber and assorted scrap. Red Cross bags were filled with stones and used as traction
