If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.
You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!
Women represented only 1.4% of the military in the Vietnam War.
In terms of military occupational specialties, there were very few open to women. The ones that were more widely available included nursing and clerical work. The majority of these women entered the military force as nurses. Other women worked as soldiers, physicians, air traffic controllers, intelligence officers, clerks.
The Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation estimates that approximately 265,000 women served in the military during Vietnam, with 11,000 American military women stationed in Vietnam during the war. Ninety percent of these women were nurses and nearly all of them were volunteers.
Women also worked in the U.S. Women’s Army Corps, the U.S. Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Army Medical Specialist Corps, the Red Cross, United Service Organization (USO), Catholic Relief Services, and other humanitarian organizations.
Early on, the U.S. Army was resistant to sending women other than nurses to Vietnam. The Women’s Army Corps (WAC) began establishing a presence in Vietnam in 1964. At its peak in 1970, WAC had 20 female officers and 130 enlisted women.
Read more about women in the Vietnam War from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund here!
View this webpage for primary sources and books on women in the Vietnam War here!
Watch "Women Veterans Discuss Their Experiences in Vietnam" here!
Listen to this podcast detailing the contributions of women during the Vietnam War here!
2. U.S. WOMEN IN THE ARMY NURSE CORPS
As early as 1956, members of the Army Nurse Corps arrived in Vietnam. Between March 1962 and March 1973, roughly 5,000 members would serve in the Vietnam War.
In April of 1956, three women arrived in Saigon to teach South Vietnamese nurses medical procedures and techniques: thus beginning American nursing during the Vietnam War.
The Army Nurse Corps motto was “to preserve the fighting force.” Most of this was done through rapid triage, with GI’s having first priority.
Learn more about the Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War here!
3. WOMEN IN THE U.S. NAVY, AIR FORCE AND MARINES
While the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps played an important role in the conflict beginning in 1963, apart from nurses, only eight Navy women (all officers) served in Vietnam.
After a lot of reluctance, the U.S. military announced that Lieutenant Elizabeth Gordon Wylie was to report to Commander Naval Forces in Saigon in June of 1967. A year later, Lieutenant Sally L. Bostwick and Lieutenant Susan F. Hamilton joined Wylie for year-long tours in Saigon.
In 1972, Commander Elizabeth M. Barrett became the first senior female officer to serve in Vietnam in a command billet.
Four Navy nurses— Lieutenant Barbara Wooster, Ruth A. Mason, Grade D. Reynolds, and Frances L. Crumpton—were awarded the Purple Heart after they were injured in a Viet Cong bombing of officers’ billet in downtown Saigon on Christmas Eve in 1964.
Learn more about the U.S. Navy Women here and here!
Women also served as members of the U.S. Air Force Nurse Corps and the Women's Air Force (WAF) during the Vietnam conflict.
Hundreds of Air Force women served at bases in South Vietnam and Thailand, mostly working as nurses and performing administrative work. Female Air Force flight nurses provided in-flight care to wounded personnel being evacuated.
In 1975, South Vietnam collapsed as communist forces advanced from the north and Operation Babylift—a mission to evacuate and resettle 2,000 Vietnamese children—began in April. Women involved in this evacuation included First Lieutenant Regina Aune, First Lieutenant Harriet Goffinett, and Captain Mary Klinker.
The mission ended in tragedy when the aircraft carrying the military personnel, children, and other adults crashed. While Captain Klinker perished in the accident, Lieutenant Aune and Lieutenant Goffinett carried countless children to safety while sustaining injuries themselves.
Learn more about the U.S. women in the Air Force here!
Watch "The Historians: Episode 6 - Operation Babylift" here!
The U.S. Marine Corps had a more limited female presence in Vietnam, with only 60 women being permitted overseas up to 1966 (mostly in Hawaii).
From 1967 to 1973, a total of 28 enlisted Marine women and eight officers served in Vietnam.
4. VIETNAM WOMEN'S MEMORIAL
The Vietnam Women’s Memorial was added to the Memorial Site and dedicated on November 11, 1993. The memorial was established to honor the women who served and the families who lost loved ones in the war.
A total of eight women in the Army Nurse Corps died from the Vietnam War. These women include:
Captain Eleanor Alexander: Eleanor worked for six years as an operating room supervisor at Madison Hospital in New York City before she volunteered to join the U.S. Army and went to Vietnam. She served in the 85th Evacuation Hospital for almost a year before dying from injuries sustained when a C-47 transport plane crashed into a mountain on November 30, 1967.
Second Lieutenant Elizabeth Jones: Elizabeth attended the Medical College of South Carolina, Charleston and immediately entered the Army Nurse Corps in 1965 upon graduating. In Vietnam, she worked in a critical care unit. On February 18, 1966, Elizabeth died in a helicopter crash.
Captain Lieutenant Carol Drazba: Carol attended Scranton State Hospital School of Nursing before volunteering for deployment in Vietnam. She worked at the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon in a busy operating room department. Carol died on February 18, 1966, when the helicopter she was riding crashed.
First Lieutenant Sharon Lane: Sharon was trained at Aultman Hospital School of Nursing in Canton, Ohio. She worked for three years before entering the Army in 1968. Sharon was assigned to care for injured and ill enemy combatants in the 312th Evacuation Hospital. As the only female nurse to die by enemy fire in the Vietnam War, she was mortally wounded when a rocket hit her facility.
First Lieutenant Pamela Donovan: A naturalized citizen from Ireland, Pamela came to Boston in 1956 and attended St. Elizabeth’s Hospital School of Nursing. She arrived in Vietnam in 1968 and served in the 85th Evacuation Hospital nursing unit. Pamela lost her life on July 8, 1968, after becoming seriously ill.
Second Lieutenant Hedwig Orlowski: Hedwig completed her basic nursing education under the Army Student Nurse Program at Hurley Hospital School of Nursing, Flint in Michigan. She entered the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in 1966 and went to Vietnam in 1967. Hedwig served in the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku and the 67th Evacuation Hospital in Qui Nhon. She died when a plane crashed into a mountain on November 30, 1967.
Lieutenant Colonel Annie Graham: Prior to Vietnam, Annie was a war veteran and had been assigned to the United States, Europe, Japan, and Ethiopia. In her time in the military, she worked as a staff nurse, head nurse, supervisor, assistant chief, and chief nurse. Annie served as a chief nurse of the 91st Evacuation Hospital in Tuy Hoa. On August 14, 1968, she succumbed to illness after being evacuated from Vietnam to Japan.
Captain Mary Klinker: Mary was a part of the Air Force Nurse Corps and was assigned to take care of the health care needs of 138 children who were being evacuated from Vietnam. On April 4, 1975, Mary was among 11 Air Force personnel, 78 children, and 35 adult passengers who died in an emergency crash landing of a C-5A aircraft near Saigon on the inaugural flight of the Operation Babylift humanitarian effort.
For more information on these fallen women, click here!
Watch "Vietnam Women's Memorial 30th Anniversary" here!
5. U.S. CIVILIAN WOMEN IN THE VIETNAM WAR
Many American civilian women worked to serve the U.S. in the Vietnam conflict. This included their efforts as a part of the American Red Cross, the Army Special Services, the United Service Organization (USO), the Peace Corps, and religious groups such as the Catholic Relief Services.
Women in the Army Special Services worked as physical therapists, dieticians, and occupational therapists. They also concentrated in arts and crafts, entertainment, library, and service club sections.
The USO logo says, “A Home Away From Home” and the women of this organization vowed to echo this in their support of the U.S. in Vietnam. At the peak of the war, the USO had 22 clubs in Vietnam. The USO women brought cheer to the military personnel in Vietnam, holding Christmas parties, rock groups, and Texas-style barbecues.
Women also worked as political activists during the Vietnam War. Among these women were Bernardine Dohrn, Jane Fonda, and Joan Baez.
Read more about the women who served in the Vietnam War here!
6. DONUT DOLLIES: WOMEN IN THE AMERICAN RED CROSS
Jan Woods in Quan Loi, Vietnam. (Photos courtesy of Jan Woods.)
The civilian women of the American Red Cross Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas were frequently known by another name: Donut Dollies. These women were college-educated and between the ages of 21 and 25.
Donut Dollies originated in WWII, as women volunteered with the American Red Cross Clubmobile Service to bring “a connection of home” to service members.
These women served as morale boosters in the Vietnam War under a program called the Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas. In this program, the Donut Dollies wore light-blue dresses, organized quiz games, and spread positivity.
Watch “Veterans Day 2013: Through the eyes of a Donut Dolly” here!
In Vietnam, there was a long-standing tradition of women warriors. According to a Vietnamese proverb: “In times of war, even the women must fight.”
Their desire to fight as soldiers came from their desire for liberation. The Vietnamese women had an extreme loyalty to their cause, a mutual respect for fellow soldiers, and an idea of a collective achievement of revolution.
Vietnamese women fought as Viet Cong soldiers, village self-defense, intelligence gatherers, medical personnel, morale boosters, and builders and maintainers of the Ho Chi Minh trail.
DANG THUY TRAM
Tram was a notable female soldier of the Viet Cong. She left her family in Hanoi on December 23, 1966 to trek down the Ho Chi Minh trail and reached Duc Pho three months later. There, she was assigned the job of Chief Surgeon in a Duc Pho clinic, working to save Viet Cong and NVA soldiers.
In late March of 1969, Tram transferred to a clinic that treated civilian and military cases in an area that Americans considered a “free-fire zone.” She witnesses airstrikes, napalm bomb explosions, and other atrocities. In June of 1970, after her clinic took a hit, Tram and other Vietnamese came face-to-face with a group of Americans. Local villagers later found her body; she had been shot in the head. Tram’s diaries were found by Fred Whitehurst, an American working with a military intelligence agency. Whitehurst kept the diaries until 2005, when he located her family and gave the works to them. Later that year, the diaries were published in Hanoi and became a bestseller. In 2007, Tram’s diary was translated into English and published under the title, “Last Night I Dreamed of Peace.”
Read this NPR article on Dang Thuy Tram and her diary here!
Other notable Vietnamese women during the wars include:
Nguyen Thi Nghi: Nghi was a resistance worker in the war against the occupying French who were defeated in 1954. She supplied food and provided shelter to the Vietnamese. Later, in the conflict with the U.S., Nghi lost two sons. She is one of the 50,000 women awarded the honorary title Heroic Mother of Vietnam.
Nguyen Thi Van: Van was encouraged by her father to join and serve in Brigade 559 in 1971, working on the Ho Chi Minh trail, which helped move supplies to units in the south of the country. Van’s duties included maintaining the communication lines and undertaking telephone repairs.
Do Thi Net: Net survived both the war with the French and the war with the U.S., but she lost her husband and one of her sons. Her other son, who was sixteen years old at the time, wanted to join the war, but Net refused to let him.
Nguyen Thi Tien: Tien was still in secondary school when she joined the 592 Pipelaying Regiment and was spurred to do so by her village. She was responsible for moving fuel through pipelines amongst the jungle of the Truong Son Mountains.
Ngo Thu Loan: Loan was a primary school teacher when she volunteered in 1971 to serve in the Vietnam People’s Army, eventually joining Brigade 559 as a nurse.
Ha Thi Mac: Mac was a soldier of Brigade 559 and worked in the jungle supplying troops. She worked among many other soldiers who died of malaria. After the war, she returned to her studies and now works in the international relations department of the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange in Hanoi.
For more information about these Vietnamese women, click here!
Read more about women in the Vietnam War 
Watch "Women Veterans Discuss Their Experiences in Vietnam" 
Listen to this podcast detailing the contributions of women during the Vietnam War 
.png)
Learn more about the U.S. women in the Air Force 
Watch "The Historians: Episode 6 - Operation Babylift" 
World History (Massachusetts).png)
Grades 1 - 8 (Massachusetts).png)
.png){kind=small}
.png){kind=small}
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png){kind=small}
.png){kind=small}
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.