Skip to main content

New top story from Time: Eight Women’s Names Are Among the Thousands on the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Here’s What to Know About Them

https://ift.tt/3fNgLLH

Second Lieutenant Elizabeth Ann Jones’ mother had recently mailed a wedding dress to her in Vietnam. Jones, whom a neighbor told the Associated Press had a “zest for life,” was planning to marry a man she had met after arriving months earlier to serve as an Army nurse. But on Feb. 18, 1966, Jones and her fiancé were both killed in a helicopter crash near Saigon. Her colleague, Second Lieutenant Carol Ann Drazba, also perished. The two women, both 22, were the first American female service members to lose their lives in the Vietnam War.

Over the course of that conflict, eight American women service members lost their lives. But, even as Americans pause on Memorial Day to remember those who have been killed in combat, the sacrifices of women service members have often been obscured. They may be fewer in number than their male counterparts, but what they faced in Vietnam was no less serious.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“We were definitely in combat zones. We were rocketed and we were mortared, and we were injured, and some died,” says Diane Carlson Evans, founder of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial. (Her story will be featured in a tribute concert this Sunday on PBS). Evans spent years fighting for an additional statue on the National Mall to honor the women who served in that conflict; it now stands as a reminder that “women, too, have sacrificed and contributed.”

Jones and Drazba, like the rest of the estimated 11,000 women who served in the American military in Vietnam, did not have to be there. But even though women were not conscripted, many felt compelled to help those who were fighting and suffering injuries. On paper, their roles kept them away from the front lines, but Vietnam was a war without clear distinctions on where that zone was. Increased utilization of helicopter transport meant the wounded made it to an operating room sooner, but close proximity also put nurses within range of hostile fire.

In the early morning hours of June 8, 1969, an enemy attack claimed the life of First Lieutenant Sharon Lane, 25, at her hospital in Chu Lai. Jane Carson, a retired colonel who was then head nurse of Lane’s ward, was getting ready for work when the rocket hit the center of their ward. Shrapnel hit Lane, killing her instantly.

“Everybody was in a state of shock that we had lost somebody right in the middle of our hospital compound and couldn’t save them,” says Carson.

Before her death, Lane had asked to remain in the Vietnamese ward, where both civilians and POWs were treated. “She was a very kind, gentle person, and she had a lot of empathy,” Carson recalls. A foundation named after Lane built a clinic near Chui Lai in tribute.

Reflecting on her own decision, Carson does not regret going—but says, “I had no idea, none of us did, what we were getting into.”

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

Even so, Second Lieutenant Pamela Donovan, 26, was determined to get to Vietnam. She had become the only member of her Irish immigrant family to obtain U.S. citizenship, enabling her to serve in the Army. Her father later told the Boston Globe that she was “very touched by what she saw happening in Vietnam on the news and was not at all frightened to go there.” Shortly after she arrived, an illness claimed her life on July 8, 1968.

Captain Eleanor Alexander, 27, joined the Army after assurances that they would send her to Vietnam. But once there, she was restless working in the relative calm of a Qui Nhon hospital and sought a temporary transfer to Pleiku to be near the fierce fighting of the Battle of Dak To. Alexander wrote to her family that “for the past three days I’ve been running on about four hours sleep…I love it.”

Her letters, which were later excerpted for a newspaper article in her home state of New Jersey, took on a more serious tone as the days wore on. “Don’t worry if you don’t hear anything from me too often,” she wrote on Nov. 24, 1967. “It’s going to be a trying time up here.”

Six days later, Alexander and Hedwig Diane Orlowski, a 23-year-old Army first lieutenant, were killed when their plane crashed into a mountainside on their return flight.

The telegram Orlowski’s parents received erroneously notified them of their son’s death, something Evans says deeply upset the family. Orlowski’s friend Penny Kettlewell, who spent late nights talking with Orlowski about their patients, told the New York Times she tried to hold a remembrance for Orlowski, but her efforts were brushed aside by her supervisor. “She said women don’t die in Vietnam,” Kettlewell told the Times in 1993.

For most of the women who disproved that statement, Vietnam was their first wartime assignment, but Lieutenant Colonel Annie Ruth Graham, highest-ranking among them, was a seasoned veteran who had served during World War II and the Korea War. She was planning to retire after more than two decades of service, much of it spent far away from her large, close-knit family in North Carolina. On her final assignment, Graham suffered a stroke and later died at the age of 51 in August of 1968.

In a sad coda to the war, Operation Babylift began to evacuate hundreds of South Vietnamese children in the spring of 1975, before the fall of Saigon. Among those on board an overcrowded cargo plane that crashed into a rice paddy shortly after takeoff on April 4, was Captain Mary Therese Klinker, 27, of the Air Force. A posthumous citation says she tended to a passenger with a decompression injury before the impact that took her life.

Their purpose in going to Vietnam was to heal, but nurses also had to cope with the losses they could not prevent. Evans vividly remembers one mortally wounded man, heavily bandaged and unable to speak, who squeezed her hand to indicate he that could hear her. Evans sat with and comforted him until he passed away. Young nurses cared for young soldiers—and the perils of the war did not discriminate between them.

The decision to be placed in harm’s way, made by each of these eight women who did not come home, meant that others could. In a testament to Carol Ann Drazba’s care, Johnny Williams, whom she treated after an ambush left him severely injured, sent flowers to her mother every year until he passed away.

Their names are etched among the more than 58,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. As Evans says of the women who served, “if it wasn’t for us, that wall would be much higher and much wider.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Muni Service Changes Starting June 13

Muni Service Changes Starting June 13 By Mariana Maguire Beginning Saturday, June 13, the SFMTA will increase Muni service and frequency, add select routes into service and extend some current routes to continue to support essential trips. A key goal of these service increases is to support the community’s economic recovery by providing more connections to neighborhood commercial districts as businesses begin to reopen. We are also adding more frequent service on targeted routes to help address crowding and improve onboard physical distancing. These service changes will improve transit access through Chinatown, SoMa and the Excelsior neighborhoods, identified by the Muni’s Service Equity Strategy as neighborhoods that rely on transit service the most based on the percentage of households with low incomes, private vehicle ownership and race and ethnicity demographics. Although Muni continues to be for essential trips only, many people have no choice but to use transit to r...

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J सिद्धार्थ रॉय कपूर फिल्म्स कि अगली सीरीज़ विलियम डेलरिम्पल कि बेस्टसेलर, 'द एनार्की: पर आधारित होगी

सिद्धार्थ रॉय कपूर के प्रोडक्शन 'रॉय कपूर फिल्म्स' ने हालही में अवार्ड विनिंग इतिहासकार और लेखक विलियम डेलरिम्पल की बेस्ट सेलिंग हिस्टोरिकल बुक ‘द अनार्की: द रिलेंटलेस राइज़ ऑफ़ द ईस्ट इंडिया कंपनी' के आधिकारिक राइट्स हासिल कर इसे सीरीज़ के from टेलीविजन की खबरें | Television News in Hindi | TV Serials Update in Hindi – FilmiBeat Hindi http:/hindi.filmibeat.com/television/siddharth-roy-kapoor-next-web-series-will-be-based-on-anarchy-090499.html?utm_source=/rss/filmibeat-hindi-television-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.11.231.156&utm_campaign=client-rss

How Muni is Tackling the 10 Worst Delay Hot Spots Across SF

How Muni is Tackling the 10 Worst Delay Hot Spots Across SF By Cassie Halls The SFMTA has had its fair share of ribbon-cutting ceremonies  over the last two years. These celebrations draw attention to some of our biggest projects. Also attention-worthy are some of the more incremental efforts happening at the agency. One such effort led by the Muni Forward team is the Transit Delay Hot Spots Program , launched in February 2020 . Muni Forward is known for corridor projects such as the L Taraval Improvement Project , 16 th Street Improvement Project , and M Oceanview Transit and Safety Project . These efforts are increasing the already sizeable 80 miles of transit reliability upgrades since 2014. There are also other ways we’re working to slash travel times and improve reliability across the Muni network. The Transit Delay Hot Spots Program aims to tackle the 10 worst “delay hot spots” each year, where buses crawl between stops at four miles an hour or less. We’re looking cl...

Exciting Changes Coming to San Francisco Taxis!

Exciting Changes Coming to San Francisco Taxis! By Exciting Changes Coming to San Francisco Taxis!  A new way to hail a taxi is coming soon, San Francisco! Yesterday, our MTA Board of Directors approved an amendment to the pilot program to test upfront fares, which was approved back in September 2021. This amendment will now allow Taxi E-Hail app providers to dispatch trips that originate with third-party entities, which may offer upfront fares that are not based on taximeter rates. In other words, you’ll soon be able to pick up your smartphone and check the cost to your destination and book a ride via taxi with a few swipes.   Allowing taxi customers to select a flat rate advance fare is intended to improve customer service, enable customers to price shop among similar services and minimize meter anxiety that occurs when customers feel that the Taximeter rate is increasing beyond their expectation. The price flexibility is intended to increase the number of taxi trips a...

Residents Overwhelmingly Support Slow Streets

Residents Overwhelmingly Support Slow Streets By Eillie Anzilotti After over a year of Slow Streets providing safe, low-volume corridors for people to walk, bike, play and travel during the pandemic, we’re excited to share our first comprehensive evaluation of the program . The key takeaway? San Franciscans are overwhelmingly in support of Slow Streets. Slow Streets are designed to limit through traffic on certain residential streets and allow them to be used as a shared roadway for people traveling by foot and by bicycle. Since introducing Slow Streets in April 2020 in response to the Mayor’s Emergency Health Order, SFMTA has designated around 30 corridors covering 47 miles of roadway as Slow Streets. The program has evolved from a critical component of San Francisco’s pandemic response and recovery to a potential new avenue to further the city and SFMTA’s goals around climate action and sustainable transportation. As the Slow Streets program has grown, we wanted to make sure we...

Muni Moves You!

Muni Moves You! By Jeanne Brophy This week we are launching a campaign to welcome back Muni riders as San Francisco continues to move further into pandemic recovery. The campaign encourages transit trips to destinations throughout the city to reconnect you to the people and places that define our city and shape the communities we belong to. As many of us adopt new travel patterns for work commutes, school trips with visits to neighborhood businesses, and cultural and sporting activities, Muni offers a reliable, safe option to move about the city. The launch of the campaign coincides with steadily increasing ridership during the work week and even more increases for weekend ridership. This is good news for SF. Increased ridership will help the city wet its climate goals and reduce traffic congestion. Sustained lower transit ridership can have negative implications for the environment and traffic congestion. The campaign graphics feature the popular Muni “worm” logo originally desig...

New top story from Time: ‘Do Not Hold Grudges.’ Joe Biden’s Notes Reveal Talking Points About Kamala Harris

https://ift.tt/2X4natB (WILMINGTON, Del.) — Joe Biden was uncharacteristically tight-lipped on Tuesday about the final stretch of his search for a vice president. But the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee seemed prepared to talk about at least one leading contender: California Sen. Kamala Harris. As he took questions from reporters on Tuesday, Biden held notes that were captured by an Associated Press photographer. Harris’ name was scrawled across the top, followed by five talking points. “Do not hold grudges.” “Campaigned with me & Jill.” “Talented.” “Great help to campaign.” “Great respect for her.” Those are all observations Biden has made about Harris before. But they take on new significance following a recent Politico report that one of Biden’s closest friends and a co-chair of his vice presidential vetting committee, former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, still harbors concerns about Harris’ tough debate stage performance and that she hasn’t expressed reg...

New T Third Route in Central Subway Starting January 7

New T Third Route in Central Subway Starting January 7 By Mariana Maguire New T Third service via Central Subway starts January 7 with service between Sunnydale and Chinatown-Rose Pak Station. On Saturday, January 7, the T Third starts its historic new route, providing a direct Metro connection between Sunnydale and Chinatown-Rose Pak Station. Service runs Mondays through Fridays, 6 a.m. to midnight. every 10 minutes and Saturdays and Sundays, 8 a.m. to midnight every 12 minutes. The new T Third line vastly improves transportation to and from some of San Francisco’s most densely populated areas and major shopping corridors, expanding transit options and new connections. The new T Third route will travel north to the new Central Subway from 4th & King platform. It will no longer turn onto King Street or run along the Embarcadero and the Market Street subway. Also, the K Ingleside will now travel between Balboa Park and Embarcadero Station. New Connections Customers traveling...

Cable Cars are Returning this Summer!

Cable Cars are Returning this Summer! By Restored Cable Car 8 being readied for return to service Nothing says “San Francisco” quite like our historic cable cars--and they’ll soon be gracing our streets once more. As the city intensifies its focus to supporting economic recovery, residents, regional visitors and tourists will see the return of the iconic cable cars and hear their chiming bells from Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf. Today, the SFMTA, along with Mayor London N. Breed, announced that cable cars will be gliding down the city’s picturesque hilltops this summer as downtown economic activity returns. SFMTA staff will conduct mechanical inspections of the historic vehicles and operator retraining in mid-July. By the first week of August, we will test the system by inviting passengers aboard for the duration of a “mock service" trial, riding the lines where cable cars are operating and making stops. This mock service will be irregular, not following a particular s...

Improved Muni Transit Information

Improved Muni Transit Information By Kharima Mohamed As part of the larger effort to provide improved transit information to Muni riders, we have significantly improved the SFMTA.com stop webpages with a focus on improved accessibility.  Each of the over six thousand stops throughout the Muni Service Network has a unique webpage that displays multiple features. These improved features on the stop webpage help to improve the customer experience for riders to easily get all the information they need to get where they need to be.   Features include:   A mobile-first designed web app view for succinct on-the-go real-time vehicle predictions at the top of the page.  Detailed route information served at each location.  Alerts specific to both that specific stop and all of the routes served.  A real-time vehicle-tracking map and a vicinity map for each stop.  Nearby stops to provide stop options if an alternative is needed.  ...