What veteran Army nurses say about their experiences serving in Vietnam
CBSN
Between 1967 and 1968, Nancy Wells spent her waking hours stitching injured Americans back together amid the haze of the Vietnam War, treating wounds she'd never imagined seeing.
When not on the hospital wards, Wells and her fellow nurses lived like other soldiers: They ate at the same mess hall, slept in the same Quonset-hut dorms, called hooches, and were jolted out of bed by the same alarms and explosions. Some nurses suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. And all were subject to the same upheaval and protests when they returned stateside.
Yet after the war, there was far less support and community for nurses and little recognition from the public of what they went through overseas. On Veterans' Day, nurses gather at the Vietnam Women's Memorial, which was built in 1993 after years of advocacy, to honor the service of the "forgotten veterans."
