Volunteers

• All women who served militarily in the conflict were volunteers from the standpoint that, unlike many male counterparts, they voluntarily joined the military, most in the early stages of the war. Although there was some discussion about drafting military nurses, the idea never took hold. Many military women asked to be assigned to the war zone.
  
  

Roles

• The various military roles of women in the Vietnam War were more limited than is the norm today. There were no women helicopter or plane pilots, truck drivers, or mechanics working in combat zones. However, there were a large number of females serving in conditions often as dangerous and draining.
  
  In the article "Unarmed and Under Fire: An Oral History of Female Vietnam Vets", written for Salon.com, author Austin Bunn says "they served prominently in Saigon, in the Mekong Delta and at Long Binh, which was, for a time, the largest Army headquarters in the world. They could not fight, nor were they allowed to carry weapons to defend themselves. Most were part of the pioneering Women's Army Corps (WAC), created in 1942 to integrate the armed forces."
  
  They worked as intelligence analysts, air traffic controllers, photographers, interrogators, mapmakers and office-support personnel. But of the 7,500 military women sent "in-country," an estimated eight out of ten served as nurses.
  
  

Nurses

• In her book "The Vietnam War," Virginia Schomp explains the basic experience of most military nurses. " Some nurses worked on navy medical ships or air force evacuation planes," she says. "Most served in the army, working either at field hospitals in combat zones or at the larger, better-equipped hospitals in the rear. Few were prepared for the horrible injuries and suffering they saw."
  
  Indeed, nurses in Vietnam were probably faced with more horrific injuries than their counterparts in previous wars had been exposed to. The speedy evacuation system of wounded soldiers in Vietnam, coupled with technological advance, brought to the surgical table many wounded men who, in previous wars, would likely have died well before making it to treatment. The emotional trauma of dealing continuously with devastating injuries, combined with the ever-present danger of snipers, rocket fire, and full-scale enemy attack, brought nearly as much stress to military nurses as it did to their male colleagues fighting in the field.
  
  

Casualties

• Nine military nurses and 58 civilian women, from both America and Australia, died while serving in Vietnam. The majority were killed in plane, helicopter, or other vehicle crashes, although at least one female died from shrapnel wounds suffered during a mortar attack. Dr. Eleanor Ardel Vietti, an American civilian nurse taken prisoner in 1962, is the only female casualty who remains listed as a POW/MIA.
  
  

Rememberance

• The Vietnam Women's Memorial was dedicated on November 11, 1993. It stands with the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C.