“Serve Yourself and Your Country”: the Wartime and Homecoming Experiences of American Female Military Nurses Who Served in the Vietnam War

“SERVE YOURSELF AND YOUR COUNTRY”: THE WARTIME AND HOMECOMING EXPERIENCES OF AMERICAN FEMALE MILITARY NURSES WHO SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR “SERVE YOURSELF AND YOUR COUNTRY”: THE WARTIME AND HOMECOMING EXPERIENCES OF AMERICAN FEMALE MILITARY NURSES WHO SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR By NATASHA MOULTON, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Natasha Moulton, September 2012 McMaster University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2012) Hamilton, Ontario (History) TITLE: “Serve Yourself and Your Country”: The Wartime and Homecoming Experiences of American Female Military Nurses Who Served in the Vietnam War AUTHOR: Natasha Moulton, B.A. (University of Waterloo), M.A. (University of Waterloo) SUPERVISOR: Professor S. Streeter NUMBER OF PAGES: ix, 298. ii Abstract Between 1964 and 1975, approximately 7,500 to 11,000 American military women served in the Vietnam War. They served in many roles – they worked as air traffic controllers, dieticians, physiotherapists, clerks, and cryptographers – but the bulk of American women who went to Vietnam served as military nurses with the Army, Navy, and Air Force Nurse Corps. This dissertation explores the wartime and homecoming experiences of female nurse veterans whose Vietnam experiences have been largely ignored or minimized by historical accounts of the war. By refashioning the narrative of the war to include women, this study challenges cultural constructions of war as an exclusively male sphere, and in doing so offers a more sophisticated understanding of both men’s and women’s Vietnam service. In Vietnam, American women risked their lives for their country. Motivated by a blend of patriotism, humanitarianism, professional advancement, and educational opportunity, female nurses volunteered for war at a time when many young men sought to evade military service. Yet the women who served have been consistently denied the rewards of their sacrifice. After the war, sexist attitudes about who is eligible for the privileges which accompany military service led the VA to routinely deny veterans entitlements including health care and disability pensions to female military nurses. Efforts to memorialize the war, through their focus on male veterans’ experience, relegated women’s service in Vietnam to the periphery of public memory. Based primarily on oral history interviews with 29 female military nurses who served in the war, this dissertation reveals women’s agency through an exploration of their responses iii to these and other gendered challenges associated with their military service, and exposes the connection between public memory and women’s access to the benefits bestowed upon martial citizens. iv Acknowledgements Many individuals contributed to the completion of this dissertation. I offer my sincerest gratitude to my dissertation committee, Dr. Karen Balcom, Dr. David Wright, and Dr. Stephen Streeter. Their insightful suggestions, gentle criticism, and thoughtful direction challenged me to clarify and reexamine my interpretations and enhance my work. I am especially indebted to Dr. Stephen Streeter, my supervisor, who provided unfailing support, patience, and guidance throughout. Without his flexibility, accessibility, vision, and tireless editing, this dissertation would not have been possible. A host of professionals were invaluable throughout the research process. Donna Knaff, former Chief Archivist at Women in Military Service for America, introduced me to women in the military community and helped me to track down new leads. Perhaps most valuably, though, during our daily lunch breaks she served as an enthusiastic sounding board for my ideas, while simultaneously offering much needed reprieve from the rigors of archival research. Cindy Gurney, Executive Director at the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation, helped me to craft my call for study participants, which she graciously published in the foundation’s monthly newsletter to female veterans. Debbie Gerlock, Chief Archivist at the Army Nurse Corps Archive, guided me through the documentary record and connected me with leading military historians. I owe a debt of gratitude to each of these individuals. Gathering oral histories is an expensive endeavor. Accordingly, in addition to the financial support provided by McMaster University I owe much thanks to the following v scholarship programs and institutions whose assistance enabled this dissertation: the Social Science and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Scholarship; the Ontario Graduate Scholarship; the Edna Elizabeth Ross Reeves Scholarship; and the Richard Fuller Memorial Scholarship. I also offer a heartfelt thanks to my friends and family – too numerous to name individually – whose steadfast encouragement, understanding, and love has guided me through the challenges of dissertation writing. In particular, my parents, Margaret and Mel Moulton, instilled in me the confidence and drive necessary to pursue my academic goals, never wavering in their devotion and support. I cannot begin to find adequate words to express my gratitude to my husband, Steven, whose unconditional love and patience formed the bedrock of this dissertation. Over the past six years he has performed many roles: he has been my biggest supporter, my driving force, my editor, my voice of reason, and at times, my life raft. His belief in me and this project offered me the nourishment I needed to complete this dissertation, and I am eternally grateful for his love and support. Lastly, I offer my deepest thanks to the twenty-nine women veterans whose stories are featured here. Each of the women I interviewed for this project was unfailingly generous. They invited me into their homes, introduced me to their loved ones, and shared with me intensely private, often difficult memories. They loaned me books, and shared numerous items from their personal collections – letters, cassettes, photos, even medical records – to help me better understand their wartime service and the struggles that often followed. They patiently provided valuable insight into military terminology, vi structure, and culture, never disdainful of my ignorance, only eager to help me understand. In the most difficult days of dissertation writing, when the project seemed too big, too hard, too lonely an endeavor, I revisited the transcripts from our interviews and became motivated all over again. It is to these inspiring women that this dissertation is dedicated. vii Table of Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv List of all Abbreviations vi Introduction: 1 Women, War, and Oral History: Adding Female Military Nurses to the Historical Narrative of the Vietnam War Chapter One: 24 “Stay in School and Send Us the Bill”: Army, Navy and Air Force Nurse Corps Recruitment Efforts during the Vietnam War Chapter Two: 62 “I Was Fresh Out of Nursing School. What Did I Know About Combat Nursing?”: From Professional Inexperience to Experience in Vietnam Chapter Three: 105 “We Were Madonnas and Whores”: Sexual Pleasure and Danger in the Military Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War Chapter Four: 159 “I Didn’t Serve in Combat, What Was My Problem?”: Female Military Nurses’ Struggle to Gain Recognition and Treatment as Sufferers of PTSD Chapter Five: 214 A Monumental Campaign: The Vietnam Women’s Memorial Conclusion: 256 “Women Have Been There for the Nation; the Nation Must Be There for Them” Bibliography 274 viii Abbreviations AFNC Air Force Nurse Corps ANC Army Nurse Corps ANCA Army Nurse Corps Archives ASNP Army Student Nurse Program BUMED Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery CFA Commission of Fine Arts CWA Commemorative Works Act DOD Department of Defense DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual DTC Drug Treatment Center ER Emergency Room GAO Government Accounting Office MASH Mobile Army Surgical Hospital MEDCAP Medical Civic Action Program MOS Military Occupational Specialty MP Military Police MST Military Sexual Trauma MUST Medical Unit Self Contained Transportable NACP National Archives at College Park, College Park, Maryland NCPC National Capital Planning Commission NNC Navy Nurse Corps NVVRS National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study OR Operating Room POW Prisoner of War PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder RG Record Group STI Sexually Transmitted Infection VA Veterans Affairs (formerly Veterans Administration) VC Viet Cong VD Venereal Disease VES Vietnam Experiences Study VFW Veterans of Foreign Wars VVA Vietnam Veterans of America VVMF Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund VWMF Vietnam Women’s Memorial Fund VWMP Vietnam Women’s Memorial Project WAC Women’s Army Corps WIMSA Women in Military Service for America WRAIN Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing XO Commanding Officer ix Ph.D. Thesis – N. Moulton; McMaster University, History Introduction Women, War, and Oral History: Adding Female Military Nurses to the Historical Narrative of the Vietnam War “This war is literally hell,” twenty-three year old Martha Bell wrote her father in September 1970. “It’s vomit and blood, puss, rotting tissue, men screaming and crying in agony.” Bell had arrived at the 12th evacuation hospital in Cu Chi three months earlier. Financial incentives and patriotism had motivated Bell to join the Army Nurse Corps as a student nurse in 1967. The military sent Bell to Vietnam in 1970, only one year after she graduated from nursing school. Although frightened and inexperienced when she arrived, three months in Vietnam had matured Bell. “I might have led quite a sheltered

Load more