Winner, 2010 Lavinia L. Dock Award, American Association for the History of NursingAn American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year in History and Public Policy
“‘I never got a chance to be a girl,’ Kate O’Hare Palmer lamented, thirty-four years after her tour as an army nurse in Vietnam. Although proud of having served, she felt that the war she never understood had robbed her of her innocence and forced her to grow up too quickly. As depicted in a photograph taken late in her tour, long hours in the operating room exhausted her both physically and mentally. Her tired eyes and gaunt face reflected th e weariness she felt after treating countless patients, some dying, some maimed, all, like her, forever changed. Still, she learned to work harder and faster than she thought she could, to trust her nursing skills, and to live independently. She developed a way to balance the dangers and benefits of being a woman in the army and in the war. Only fourteen months long, her tour in Vietnam profoundly affected her life and her beliefs.”
Such vivid personal accounts abound in historian Kara Dixon Vuic’s compelling look at the experiences of army nurses in the Vietnam War. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Vuic allows the nurses to tell their own captivating stories, from their reasons for joining the military to the physical and emotional demands of a horrific war and postwar debates about how to commemorate their service.
Vuic also explores the gender issues that arose when a male-dominated army actively recruited and employed the services of 5,000 nurses in the midst of a growing feminist movement and a changing nursing profession. Women drawn to the army’s patriotic promise faced disturbing realities in the virtually all-male hospitals of South Vietnam. Men who joined the nurse corps ran headlong into the army's belief that women should nurse and men should fight.
Officer, Nurse, Woman brings to light the nearly forgotten contributions of brave nurses who risked their lives to bring medical care to soldiers during a terrible—and divisive—war.
Kara Dixon Vuic is an assistant professor of history at Bridgewater College.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: "Lady, you're in the army now"1. "The Bright Adventure of Army Nursing": Meeting Nursing Demands for the Vietnam War2. "An officer and a gentleman": Gender and a Changing Army3. "A wonderful, horrible experience": Nursing Education and Practice4. "Helmets and hair curlers": Gender and Wartime Nursing5. "I'm afraid we're going to have to just change our ways": Wives, Mothers, and Pregnant Nurses in the Army6. "You mean we get women over here?": Gender and Sexuality in the War Zone7. "Not All Women Wore Love Beads in the Sixties": Postwar Depictions of Vietnam War NursesConclusion: Officers, Nurses, and WomenNotesEssay on SourcesIndex
What People are Saying About This
Elizabeth Hillman
Officer, Nurse, Woman contributes mightily to the historiography of military nurses, of women in the military, and women in the paid work force after World War II.
— Elizabeth Hillman, University of California Hastings College of the Law
William T. Allison
Solid, engaging, insightful scholarship. To see the effective mixing of gender history and social history with military history is refreshing and welcome. Vuic addresses a deep hole in the scholarship on the Vietnam War.
— William T. Allison, Georgia Southern University
From the Publisher
Solid, engaging, insightful scholarship. To see the effective mixing of gender history and social history with military history is refreshing and welcome. Vuic addresses a deep hole in the scholarship on the Vietnam War.—William T. Allison, Georgia Southern University
Officer, Nurse, Woman contributes mightily to the historiography of military nurses, of women in the military, and women in the paid work force after World War II.—Elizabeth Hillman, University of California Hastings College of the Law
