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22 Working Nurse l WorkingNurse.com October 5–November 9, 2020 Many of the soldiers, Marines and sailors the nurses treat- ed were very young: 18 to 22 years old, with a few as young as 17. Most of the nurses weren't much older than their patients, and few were prepared for what they witnessed. "I had no experience in emergency room, no trauma or intensive care training," recalls Marsha Four, RN, a former ANC first lieutenant. "I was a totally, totally green nurse. To say 'challenging' doesn't come close to the feelings that I had about being incompetent. Their lives were in my hands." The emotional demands on the nurses were substantial. "We didn't just take care of their physical wounds, any nurse that has served in any war zone will tell you," says Grace Lilleg Moore, who was a second lieutenant at the Army's 12th Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi in 1968–69. "We were their emotional support. We were their mother, their wife, their girlfriend." Nurses also treated prisoners of war and civilians, includ- ing women and children brought to American hospitals for treatment. The war took a heavy toll on the Vietnamese population. Today, the government of Vietnam estimates that the total civilian death toll was about 2 million. "One of the worst memories of Vietnam was seeing chil- dren die," says Mary Beth Crowley, an ANC second lieu- tenant from 1969 to 1971. "Every time somebody died, I died with them." "I Don't Think I Ever Slept in Vietnam" M ilitary nurses usually worked 12-hour shifts six days in a row, but if many casualties came in, a 12-hour shift could easily become 24 or even 36 hours. "I don't think I ever slept in Vietnam," Evans says. "I think I was always on the verge of sleeping, waiting for that call and choppers overhead." Nurses sometimes found novel ways of blowing off steam between shifts. Lou Eisenbrand and her colleagues at Chu Lai took up waterskiing. "We used a Jeep to pull the boat, but I have no idea where the Jeep and boat and skis came from," she says. Dealing every day with horror presented some nurses with a crisis of faith. Moore recalls thinking, "I'm done with you, God. My God wouldn't do this to these boys." Others found themselves becoming callous or just numb. In the 1987 book Nurses in Vietnam: The Forgotten Veterans, former Army nurse Jacqueline Navarra Rhoads recalls this gruesome anecdote: I remember this nurse came in and she was scheduled to take the place of another nurse. When she saw me, I went to greet her and I had this leg under my arm. She col- lapsed on the ground in a dead faint. I thought, "What could possibly be wrong with her?" There I was trying to figure out what's wrong with her, not realizing that here I had this leg with a combat boot still on and half the man's combat fatigue still on, blood dripping over the exposed end. And I had no idea this might bother her. Different nurses found different strategies for coping with the burdens of war. Some did their best to compartmentalize, pushing the horrors out of their minds. Some drank or turned to drugs, problems that sometimes followed them home. The Final Campaign: A Memorial in D.C. W hile many who served in Vietnam longed for home, the return wasn't always easy. Some nurs- es missed the strong bond they'd formed with their comrades, which they rarely found again. Nurses who went to work in civilian hospitals after the war were often frustrated by the limitations of their jobs. Others found them- selves missing the intensity of their wartime experience. Many never spoke of their experiences in Vietnam, which deepened their postwar stress and depression. Some devel- oped symptoms of what is now identified as PTSD. Veterans' organizations weren't always welcoming of women who'd served. The Veterans of Foreign Wars didn't accept female veterans until 1978, Vietnam Veterans of America not until several years after that. Even the Veterans Administration was ill-equipped to meet the needs of female Vietnam vets. A vigorous advocacy campaign led by nurses and former nurses eventually brought about some much-need improvements. In 1984, Evans also founded the Vietnam Women's Memorial Project (VWMP), originally called the Vietnam Nurses Memorial Project. After a nine-year struggle, the memorial — a 15-foot bronze statue designed by sculptor Glenna Goodacre — was dedicated on the Mall in Washington, D.C., near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (whose designer, Maya Lin, had opposed the monument). Today, the statue is a popular tourist destination and a reminder of these often-forgotten veterans. ____________________________________________________ Aaron Severson is the associate editor of Working Nurse. You can find his recent historical features, "William Rathbone VI (1819-1902), Father of English District Nursing" and "A Brief History of Measles and Its Vaccines," at WorkingNurse.com. Lorilea Johnson, RN, MSN, FNP-BC, is a family nurse practitioner who has worked in urgent care for the past 20 years. She is currently completing her doctorate in nursing at Missouri State University. WN IN COUNTRY