Sisterhood of War: Minnesota Women in Vietnam

Notes

169 Notes Notes to Introduction 1. Diane Carlson Evans, “Our War” (1983), in Visions of War, Dreams of Peace: Writings of Women in the Vietnam War, eds. Lynda Van Devanter and Joan A. Furey (NewYork: Warner Books, 1991), 95–97. Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (New York: Broadway Books/Houghton Mifflin, 1990). 2. These figures are taken from the following sources: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Women Veterans Statistics, “Women Veterans Population, October 2009”; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Demographics, Veteran Population 2007, VetPop2007 State Tables 2L, “Veterans by State, Period, Age Group, Gender, 2000–2036”; Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation website , http://tinyurl.com/4tdggsz; Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation, Inc., website, http://tinyurl.com/4urqhum; Celebration of Patriotism and Courage: Dedication of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, November 10–12, 1993 (Washington, D.C.: Vietnam Women’s Memorial Project, 1993); “Vietnam,” author and veteran Noonie Fortin’s website, http:// www.nooniefortin.com/vietnam.htm. 3. Some of the women were born and raised in Minnesota but now live elsewhere, while others grew up in other states but moved here after the war ended. One woman grew up and still lives in Wisconsin but is a central member of the core group of Minnesota nurses whose stories are featured here. Another woman didn’t serve in Vietnam itself, but on Guam, where she treated casualties coming from Vietnam. 4. The group that I contacted was Vietnam Women Veterans, an organization for nonnurse veterans of the war. They formed their group to bring attention to the experiences of women who served in capacities be- 170 Notes to pages 6–18 sides nursing—as enlisted women or line officers. For more information on enlisted or line officer women veterans, see ch. 1 of my dissertation, “G.I. Gender: Vietnam War–Era Women Veterans and U.S. Citizenship” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2002), 42–107. 5. The idea of the “loyalty of the shared ordeal” comes from B. J. Phillips, “On Location with the WACs,” MS Magazine (November 1972): 55. 6. I am using the word “soldier” here in its most general sense, to refer to anyone who serves in any branch of the military. 7. Though there are no official membership rolls or organizational charts for this group, I realize that I have not interviewed every nurseveteran from Minnesota who has been part of, or knows the members of, this group. The military, VA, and veteran communities often carefully distinguish between “Vietnam veterans” (those who served in the Republic of Vietnam [South Vietnam]) and “Vietnam era veterans” (those who served during the war but were stationed elsewhere) to clarifywho is eligible forwhich kinds of services, benefits, and honors. As the women’s Vietnam veteran community took shape in organizing for theVietnam Women’s Memorial, however, such distinctions became less important. Mary O’Brien Tyrrell, for instance, had served on Guam, not in Vietnam, but was actively involved in the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Project. All quotes, ideas, and actions attributed to these women in the text are taken from these interviews unless otherwise noted. See Interviewees section for information on these interviews. 8. See, forexample, KeithWalker, APiece of My Heart:The Stories ofTwentySix American Women Who Served in Vietnam (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, [1985] 1997); Elizabeth Norman, Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990); Kara Dixon Vuic, Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). 9. O’Brien, The Things They Carried, 179–80. 10. Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 50, and The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), 16. 11. O’Brien, The Things They Carried, 225. Notes to Chapter 1 1. In the mid-1960s, 97 percent of new nurses were white, and 99 percent were female. Norman, Women at War, 7, 9; Susan Gelfand Malka, Daring to Notes to pages 18–24 171 Care: American Nursing and Second-Wave Feminism (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 25; Vuic, Officer, Nurse, Woman, 16–17. Sara Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: Free Press, 1989), 254; ElaineTyler...