Sisterhood of War Minnesota Women in Vietnam Kim Heikkila V I E T N A M “A vivid account of the heroism and heartbreak of fifteen Minnesota nurses who served in the Vietnam War. With clarity and insightfulness, Heikkila describes why these women served and what they experienced both during and after the war as they fought for their own personal healing and public recognition of women’s wartime service.” Kara Dixon Vuic, author of Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War Heikkila s i s t e r h o o d o f wa r 800-647-7827 www.mhspress.org Front cover, top: Diane Carlson Evans, head nurse, 71st Evacuation Hospital, Pleiku, Vietnam, 1969; bottom: Evans with patients and coworkers, 36th Evacuation Hospital, Vung Tau, Vietnam, 1968 Vietnam map: Courtesy of the University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin Jacket design: Diana Boger Author photo: Steve Silverman Imaging Kim Heikkila is an adjunct instructor in the history department at St. Catherine University, where she teaches courses on U.S. history, U.S. women’s history, the Vietnam War, and the 1960s. Historian Kim Heikkila delves into the experiences of fifteen nurse veterans from Minnesota, exploring what drove them to enlist, what happened to them in-country, and how the war changed their lives. These women, among approximately six thousand military nurses who served in Vietnam, saw themselves as nurses first and foremost: their job was to heal rather than to kill. After the war, however, the very professional selflessness that had made them such committed military nurses also made it more difficult for them to address their own needs as veterans. Reaching out to each other, they began healing from the wounds of war, and they turned their energies to a new purpose: this group of Minnesotans launched the campaign to build the national Vietnam Women’s Memorial. In the process, a collection of individuals became a tight-knit group of veterans who share the bonds of a sisterhood forged in war. $19.95 ISBN 978-0-87351-637-2 780873 9 516372 5 1 9 9 5 $19.95 Women’s Studies/Minnesota History SisAW_cover_final.indd 1 7/25/11 11:43:12 AM ...