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Front cover inset photo: helicopter medevac (VA042547), James Evans Collection, August 1970, The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University. Front and back cover snapshots: the author’s personal collection.

Elizabeth Norman, Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990). Reproduced with the permission of the author.

Florence Nightingale, Florence Nightingale to Her Nurses: A Selection From Miss Nightingale’s Addresses to Probationers and Nurses of the Nightingale School, St. Thomas’ Hospital (London: Macmillan, 1914).

Helen Wells, Cherry Ames, Army Nurse (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1944). Reproduced with the permission of Springer Publishing Company, LLC.

Photos and Illustrations: All photos and illustrations were reproduced with permission of the individual authors (as noted in the captions) and are for this book only. None may be used in any other form without permission of the authors.

Vietnam Women’s Memorial, located just south of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in the National Mall, Washington, D.C., commemorates the 265,000 women who served in the Vietnam War.

It has been forty-seven years since I left the war in Vietnam, but that war has never left me. I carry no outward scars: It’s been years since I ducked for cover when a loud noise erupted near me; since hearing the whirl of helicopter blades filled me with dread; or since fleeting memories of the war interrupted my sleep.

However, I can’t forget the deception — brain washing, if you will — by the American government. I and thousands if not millions of Americans believed we were in Vietnam to save the people from the throes of the Communist North. I thought we would be greeted as saviors; instead we were often treated as intruders. As I mentioned in the second chapter, I felt betrayed then and I still do.

Thankfully, writing and publishing Round Eyes: An American Nurse in Vietnam in 2012, was a cathartic undertaking for me because I was forced to think about things I hadn’t thought of in a long time. Putting it down on paper helped me replace numerous unhappy memories with happy ones. It allowed me to choose what I wanted to remember and gave me permission to discard what I didn’t.

An unexpected, yet welcomed, outcome from my first book was the connection it created between me and other veterans and their families. Speaking in front of book clubs, visiting with veterans of all ages at book signings and talking with young people at schools made me realize how important it was and is to not hide from my experiences, but to share them.

I remember leading a discussion group about being an author at the elementary school my grandson attended. A fourth-grader came up to me at the end and proudly said, “My granddad was in Vietnam.” And then another piped up, “My mom is in Afghanistan, and she wears combat boots, too.”

I wanted to keep that conversation going. So when faced with the prospect of running out of the 500 printed copies I originally purchased, I had to make a decision. I could remove the print version from Amazon and leave the e-reader format, I could pay a print-on-demand publisher to do a second printing of the original, or I could make the original better.

I chose the latter for several reasons, including reconnecting with Ginny, my former roommate, after the original book hit the market. Always the consummate photographer, she’d discover and then send me a picture from our time in Vietnam. Naturally that compelled me to dig through my photos and with each picture I found or received from Ginny, the idea of doing a second printing and including our photos grew more compelling.

Additionally, I didn’t want the American War in Vietnam to be limited by what history says about it. Except for a few rusting tanks and revetments, all traces of the “losing side” of that infamous war have been erased — as if they never existed. Trees have taken back the jungle and bicycles have replaced tanks, jeeps, and other military vehicles on the city streets.

U.S. Army Vietnam veteran Ivan Laningham chronicled his reconciliation visit to Vietnam in 2002. In one of his posts he observed:

Over half the population of Viet Nam is under 25. Most people I see and meet on this trip weren’t born when the American War was going on. Most people are new, without the bad taste of war in their minds and mouths; everywhere we go in-country there is new construction and a gaze ahead, not back.¹

In another post he described driving past the old National Military Cemetery near Ben Hoa that he used to see on his trips to Cu Chi in 1970. The cemetery was apparently still there, but the monument was gone. Ivan wrote, “Instead the communists hung on the [cemetary} gate a board on which people read, ‘Here the False Army soldiers were punished for their crimes.’”

I regret that I never documented the stories my dad told me about being a medic in WWII, how it felt being part of Patton’s march through Germany and being one of the first to arrive at Dachau. He died and his stories died with him, as did the stories of many of the Greatest Generation.

Unfortunately stories can’t change the fact that the United States engaged its citizens into combat for all the wrong reasons. But we can change how that combat will be viewed by those that come long after we Baby Boomers become “dust in the wind.”

Personal accounts of the Vietnam War: what it meant, what it was like and how it was perceived by those who were — or weren’t there, for one reason or another — can become more than words or statistics alone. This history becomes humanity.

In the words of Rudyard Kipling, “If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”

A very special “thank you” to Ginny Dear-dorff Dornheggen, my Walter Reed and Vietnam roommate and frequent partner-in-crime, for tracking me down. The many hours on the phone catching up with each other’s lives have been wonderful. I am also indebted to Ginny for allowing many of her photos, as well as her name, to be included in this second printing.

I am grateful that one of our hooch mates, Laura A. (Hines) Kern, contacted Ginny after reading the first edition of Round Eyes to tell her she was the roommate named Cindy. Laura also mailed her copy to Ginny and, as they say, “the rest is history.”

My eternal gratitude goes to my uncle, the late Capt. Robert Schuster, USN, Ret., who was the publisher and mentor for the first edition of Round Eyes. Without his guidance, this story would not have made it off my computer screen and onto the page.

A big “thank you” to James Retherford at Hot Digital Dog Design for saying yes without hesitation when I asked if he could help with this second project. His patience explaining pixels to me and Ginny was unending.

I can’t forget to thank my FOG (Friends of the Grape) pals Cindy, Merry, and Linda Kay, who encouraged me to keep writing and even provided cheese when I whined. And thank you, Cindy, for allowing me to use your name in lieu of Ginny’s for the first printing of Round Eyes.

I am so very grateful to Marge Neal, who was a patient on the pediatric ward at Walter Reed when I was stationed there in 1970. Miraculously, she not only remembered me, but took the time and effort to reconnect. As a bonus, Marge graciously offered her skills as a journalist and word nerd to edit new material, while providing needed guidance for this project.

Thank you to my daughter, Shannon, who suggested that I do a second printing of Round Eyes, only this time with photos. Love you!

Hugs and kisses to my promoters, Emmary and Noah, for telling their friends and teachers, “My Grammy is an author. You should read her books.”

Finally, a great big “thank you” to my husband Stephen, who wisely kept quiet during the process of writing and rewriting and grumbled not too much when another check needed to be written. Thank you, Sweetie, for everything.

Round Eyes: In the early years of the Vietnam War, American servicemen used this term to differentiate between non-Asian and Asian soldiers. Later, as more females arrived, it became the common method to describe women from the United States and other English-speaking countries.

Hooch: Military slang for a thatched hut or improvised living space. It evolved to mean any living space used by service men and women in Vietnam.

Short-timer: A person who is close to completing her/his tour in Vietnam. The normal tour was 365 days, so when the number of days remaining was 99 or less, then that person was called a “double-digit-midget” or simply “short.”

Mortar: A muzzle-loading cannon with a short tube in relation to its caliber that throws projectiles with low muzzle velocity at high angles.

Tet Offensive: A major coordinated attack against US military installations and provincial capitals throughout South Vietnam which occurred during the Buddhist lunar New Year at the end of January 1968.

Shoulder patch of the 67th Evacuation Hospital. The Latin motto, Mihi Portate Vulneratos, means “Bring Me Your Wounded.”

Nursing had always been Cherry’s dream. She knew it was the finest way a girl could serve people, and Cherry loved people and wanted to help them. Nursing was the way to put her idealism into practice.

Before I begin my story, I need to set the stage by giving you a sense of knowing me: who I was and how that may have led me to the Vietnam War.

My life began as Diane Mumper in a rural community of about 200 people in southwestern Pennsylvania, close to the border of West Virginia. A fort established in the early 1700s, called Fort Taylor, formed the basis and hence the name for the town — Taylorstown.

Patriotism flowed through Taylorstown’s blood in proportions equal to that of red or white blood cells. My family and I shared the commonality of patriotism so evident in the community. I’m proud to say that there has been at least one member of my family in every war since the forming of the colonies: from the French and Indian War through the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The first five years of my elementary education were in a four-room schoolhouse, and the sixth grade was in a single-room schoolhouse. There was no indoor plumbing in our schools, but at least there were separate outhouses for girls and boys — three-holers at that. My grandmother only had a one-holer. Anyway, by the time I reached junior high a new school was built, with indoor plumbing and everything.

I graduated from high school in June 1966, and two months later I started nurse’s training in a girls-only school in a hospital north of Pittsburgh. I was seventeen, and I had never been away from home before. And I was a little naïve since there were three boys and just one girl (me) in our family. Actually, I was so naïve that I thought feminine napkins were table napkins used exclusively by ladies. It was after my girlfriend and I got caught by a teacher, while carrying a box of these “napkins” from the ladies bathroom to the cafeteria, that I learned what they were actually used for — I was so embarrassed.

In nursing school, I lived in the dorm with the other nursing students. In fact, everyone lived in the dorm married or not, children or not. This was usually not an issue, because marriage was forbidden until the student was close to graduation. However, a few girls came into the program married, and one of my classmates was divorced, with custody of her two children. But no matter what the circumstances were, without exception, everyone stayed in the dorm.

	Dedication
	Introduction: Second Edition
	Acknowledgements
	Glossary
PROLOGUE	A Little Background First
	Basic Training
	The Reflecting Pool
ONE	The Beginning
TWO	Disillusioned
THREE	In-Processing
FOUR	Major “Uncle” Frank
FIVE	The Reality of War
SIX	Celebrities
SEVEN	Christmas in Vietnam
EIGHT	The Hooch
NINE	Daily Life
TEN	Wham, Bam, Thank You, Spam
ELEVEN	To Fraternize or Not to Fraternize
TWELVE	Coping
THIRTEEN	Nursing in Combat Boots
FOURTEEN	The 67th Evacuation Hospital
FIFTEEN	Section 8 and Other Crazy Stuff
SIXTEEN	The General’s Table
SEVENTEEN	Remembering the Patients
EIGHTTEEN	Singing in the Band
NINETEEN	The Air Force Dance
TWENTY	The Leprosarium
TWENTY ONE	Men, Sex, and Other Lies
TWENTY TWO	Going Home
EPILOGUE	And the Rest of the Story
	About the Author
EXCERPT	Martini Alley and Other Misadventures