Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam

6. The Status of Female Military Nurses in Vietnam

6 The Status of Female Military Nurses in Vietnam There is a maldistribution of the sexes in war. Combat and war are masculine experiences. No one is sure of the total number of nurses who served in Vietnam, but estimates indicate they were a small minority in the overall American effort.1 Their needs seemed inconsequential. Official emphasis was on combat, tactics , and men. Military leaders knew women were serving in Vietnam.2 But they did little to provide them with the necessities. For example, the military PX stores located on the bases where the nurseslived carried soap and shampoo but not tampons. These same stores carried nylon stockings, but, as one nurse said, "we didn't have a great need for nylons with our fatigues. They were probably there for the soldiers to buy for their local girl friends." Military women were almost invisible, while women who filled traditional roles in war—the barmaid, the prostitute—were not. The nurses learned in this overwhelminglymale environment and came to view the lack of planning for women with a mixture of disbelief and humor. Most of the oversights concerning women were merely embarrassing or uncomfortable. 66 Women at War An army lieutenant learned about being a minority when she contracted food poisoning and found herself in a medical ward filled with male patients. It was a communal existence. "I remember ," she said, "even sharing the bathroom! I found myself sitting [in the bathroom] next to a man. We'd all shuffle in with our IVs, hang them on the toilet door, weakly smile at each other, and later shuffle out." How did she feel about this privation? At first she was so sick she did not care who saw her, but later, when her sense of propriety returned, she wondered why there was only one women's bathroom in the whole hospital. Perhaps military leaders never thought women would get sick or need bathrooms at work. Then there was a group of nurses who realized the standard issue metal helmets did not fit a woman's head covered in hair curlers! "It became a bigjoke with us [the nurses],'' said a former lieutenant. "When the alert siren went off, we had to decide if we were really going to get hit so you could rip out your curlers." The longer they spent in Vietnam, the more accurate their assessments of the alert situations. No one wanted to waste valuable sleeping time on unnecessary grooming. The nurses had never imagined they would blend the art of hairstyles with helmets and sirens. But there were occasions when the oversight and narrow thinking of military planners proved potentially dangerous. Throughout Vietnam, troops had prepared for enemy attacks. Soldiers built bunkers, uncoiled concertina wire around base perimeters, and set up defense guns. Every soldier became familiar with the procedure to be followed when a "red alert" (warning of enemy attack) occurred. Veterans learned to be particularly watchful at night, the enemy's favorite time to lob mortars or send rockets crashing into the bases. Nurses received instructions on the procedures to be followed when the alarm sounded. Initially, all military personnel followed the same directives . But the "alert" orders for some women soon changed. It was decided because there were only thirty of us [nurses] in this big base of men, it was probably dangerous to let us run out in our pajamas and nightgowns into the bunkers. Not dangerous in the sense that the enemy was going to get us but that the American men would see us. So the enlisted men sandbagged our Quonset huts [living quarters] to chest Status of Female Military Nurses 67 height. When we had an alert we were told to roll out of our bunks, put on flak [protective]jackets and helmets,and go under the bunkwith our heads against the sandbags.s. On paper, the alert procedure made sense, but the planners had neglected to consider female shape. "They didn't realize with the beds so low to the ground, if you had any bust at all you couldn't put your flak jacket on and get under the bed. You wouldn't fit! So what you did was crawl under the bunk and throw the jacket over yourself." None of the nurses in this group were injured. At another military base, instead of trained military guards, medical corpsmen secured the nurses' compound. The corpsmen...