Vietnam War

9 Pages 2172 Words

When someone thinks of the Vietnam War, people think of all the men that died and risked their lives. No one ever takes in to consideration that there was women in that war that fought, helped saved soldiers, wrote articles on it, served in the Red Cross, and died in that horrible war. In the time of the war women were still perceived to not be capable of doing what men could do. They went into Vietnam proving that they have the skills, strength, and mental capability to be with the men. Army, Navy and Air Force Nurses and Medical Specialists numbered over six thousand (U.P).
All Army nurses were officers, and were Direct Commissions (T.O.D.I). They became nurses first and then attended a ten day or so Orientation Course at (Ft. Sam Houston, Texas) to teach them how to be officers. In 1965, Maj. Kathleen Wilkes and SFC Betty Adams became the first U.S. Women’s Army Corps (WAC) members to serve as Military Advisors to the newly formed Women’s Corps of the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam (ARVN) (Starr 234). A lot of women requested to be sent to Vietnam but were declined. Many claim that they were being denied on purpose because many felt that women could not handle it. One WAC lieutenant complained, “What kind of delicate creatures do the brass think we are? There’s a war going on in Vietnam, but you have to be a civilian to get assigned there. Women are fighting in the jungles with the Vietcong. Yet we aren’t allowed to dirty our dainty hands” (234). Over five hundred WAC’s were stationed in Vietnam (U.P). Three factors collected to confine the amount of military women serving in Southeast Asia: (1) conventional outlook towards servicewomen; (2) desire to keep women from the unsympathetic realities of warfare; and (3) commanders believed it was easier to deal with only men. The women that did serve in Vietnam proved how capable they were of performance under all the aggressive fire. During 1968 Tet Offensive, Ca...