Speaker 1: When I went back to my hooch, all hell broke loose.
Speaker 1: Now we're getting incoming. The hospital is under attack. The
Speaker 1: noise is unbelievable. That ran to my surgical unit where
Speaker 1: I was head nurse, and we just the patients just
Speaker 1: got onto the floor. And the ones who couldn't get
Speaker 1: on the floor were the ones hooked up to ventilators
Speaker 1: and or had chest tubes and were you know, all
Speaker 1: kinds of intravenous and bloodlines, and we couldn't move them.
Speaker 1: So we took the mattresses. We threw mattresses on those
Speaker 1: that we could. That was Diane Carlson Evans recalling her
Speaker 1: time as an army combat nurse in Vietnam in nine.
Speaker 1: Her experiences there led her to another battle, a ten
Speaker 1: year effort to get recognition for the two sixty five
Speaker 1: thousand women who served in the U. S Military during
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War. I'm Milan Ververin. This is Seneca's one
Speaker 1: hundred Women to Hear. We are bringing you one hundred
Speaker 1: of the world's most inspiring and history making women you
Speaker 1: need to hear. If you haven't seen the Vietnam Women's Memorial,
Speaker 1: be sure to visit on your next trip to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Designed by sculptor Glenna Goodacre and located on
Speaker 1: the National Mall, the statute depicts three Vietnam era women,
Speaker 1: one of whom is caring for a wounded male soldier,
Speaker 1: and this inspiring tribute is there because of Diane Carlson Evans.
Speaker 1: In addition to leading the campaign for the statute, Diane
Speaker 1: also founded the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation. The foundation educates
Speaker 1: the public about the role of women during the Vietnam
Speaker 1: War and supports research into their physiological, psychological, and sociological needs.
Speaker 1: Listen and learn why Diane Carlson Evans is one of
Speaker 1: Seneca's on women to hear. We are so pleased today
Speaker 1: to have with us Diane Carlson Evans. Welcome, Diane, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's my honor to to be with you today.
Speaker 1: You are a former army nurse, a voice for women veterans.
Speaker 1: You've had the perseverance to spend more than ten years
Speaker 1: making the Vietnam Women's Memorial a reality. And speaking of
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War, I gather that your experience there extended
Speaker 1: from nineteen to sixty nine, and if I remember that
Speaker 1: was an intense period of the war. What was your
Speaker 1: day to day life like as an army combat nurse,
Speaker 1: and maybe you could share with us a little bit
Speaker 1: of how that experience affected you. Yes, and it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to put it milan into um words that you
Speaker 1: know within five minutes or less or you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's something that it's it's just such an epic experience
Speaker 1: for any young person. And so many of us were
Speaker 1: so young when we went to Vietnam, the year olds,
Speaker 1: the draftees, and those of us in our twenties. I
Speaker 1: was twenty one when I went to Vietnam. To encapsulate
Speaker 1: or two, Um, give you um a picture that I
Speaker 1: might paint of what was it like for an army
Speaker 1: nurse in Vietnam. Maybe I could take you back to
Speaker 1: one night and this was just one night in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: but it's like my whole year there. Mass casualties were
Speaker 1: coming in. I'm at the seventy first evacuation Hospital. I mean,
Speaker 1: play who play who Vietnam, which is in the central highlands.
Speaker 1: It's in the jungle. We're close to the Ho Chi
Speaker 1: Minh trail. We're close to the Cambodian border. All hell
Speaker 1: has broken loose. We're kind of the epicenter of um
Speaker 1: action happening at the time, and the mass casualties are
Speaker 1: coming in by helicopter mostly, And one night I hear
Speaker 1: a chopper come in and another helicopter, and then I
Speaker 1: hear a helicopter that is so loud that it is
Speaker 1: shaking my hooch. And it's in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: And of course we don't sleep well in Vietnam because
Speaker 1: of the noise and being hyper vigilant, hyper alert to
Speaker 1: the noises. Is it incoming, is it outgoing? And this
Speaker 1: chopper was different. It was a Chinook, and a Chinook,
Speaker 1: as you know, is a large helicopter, and that meant
Speaker 1: mass casualties. I didn't need to hear the phone ring.
Speaker 1: I just grabbed my helmet, I got my fatigues on,
Speaker 1: my combat boots and my flak jacket, and I ran
Speaker 1: to the hospital because I knew we'd be getting called.
Speaker 1: And I was told to go to the empty, empty ward.
Speaker 1: We kept a spare ward just for mass casualties. I
Speaker 1: was told to go there. The word master had set
Speaker 1: up you know, like thirty I think it was forty beds.
Speaker 1: He'd set up thirty forty i v s ready to go,
Speaker 1: just in case. I had one medic, and the casualties
Speaker 1: started coming in and I had one medic, so um that.
Speaker 1: And we were using flashlights because at night, you know, Charlie, Victor, Charlie,
Speaker 1: the Vietcong. The night belonged to them, we used to say,
Speaker 1: And so lights were out. It had to be dark.
Speaker 1: The patients started coming in one by one, and the
Speaker 1: beds were filling up, and I said to the ward master,
Speaker 1: had hung the i v s. And I said to
Speaker 1: my medic, I said, mcabe, we have to let's just
Speaker 1: get these i vs in, every single one of them,
Speaker 1: and then we can deal with the aftermath of that.
Speaker 1: So and then I realized. I said to my medic,
Speaker 1: I said, look, these guys don't have any poles, there's
Speaker 1: no wounds, and but they were deadly ill. Their their
Speaker 1: blood pressure that they were in shock. They had low
Speaker 1: blood pressure, low respirations, and they weren't talking to us,
Speaker 1: and I said, oh my god, we just have to
Speaker 1: get these i vs in. The doctor came and told
Speaker 1: us what to hang. We did as he said. By
Speaker 1: the end in the dark, um and their veins were collapsed.
Speaker 1: So it was very difficult to find the vein to
Speaker 1: start the ivy. But by now, remember I'm twenty two
Speaker 1: by now. But nurses became very skilled, very quickly in
Speaker 1: Vietnam because of the sheer numbers of people we took
Speaker 1: care with, took care of. And by the end, Mike Corman,
Speaker 1: my medic, said to me, well, Lieutenant, we're done. And
Speaker 1: I just looked at him and he said, twenty eight.
Speaker 1: He counted them. We had just started a visay. And
Speaker 1: now my shift, the board is calmed, the doctor comes in,
Speaker 1: They're going to be okay because they've got you know,
Speaker 1: life saving um intervene exfusions. And I had to go
Speaker 1: back to my hooch to try to get four hours
Speaker 1: asleep from my next shift. When I went back to
Speaker 1: my hooch, all hell broke loose. Now we're getting incoming.
Speaker 1: The hospital is under attack. Rockets and mortars are you
Speaker 1: know the thud? You just never forget those sounds, the
Speaker 1: thud and then the shrapnel and the noise is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And so now I'm in my unit, ran to my
Speaker 1: surgical unit where I was head nurse, and we just
Speaker 1: the patients just got on the onto the floor and
Speaker 1: The ones who couldn't get on the floor were the
Speaker 1: ones hooked up to ventilators and or had chest tubes,
Speaker 1: and we're you know, all kinds of um intravenous and bloodlines,
Speaker 1: and they couldn't We couldn't move them. So we took
Speaker 1: the mattresses from the beds with it. Wounded had gone
Speaker 1: under their bed. We threw mattresses on those that we could.
Speaker 1: It was their only protection from the shrapnel. And we
Speaker 1: there was one other female nurse army nurse with me,
Speaker 1: and we had for metics and so we are all
Speaker 1: doing everything we can to protect these soldiers. Now, the bloodlines,
Speaker 1: we had extensions on our bloodlines and our I v
Speaker 1: s for this very reason, so that if they had
Speaker 1: to go to the floor and get under their bed,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't yank out their life saving lines. And so
Speaker 1: now I'm putting those back together. And finally I look
Speaker 1: around the unit and there's nothing else we can do
Speaker 1: except this little montain Yard girl who we had had
Speaker 1: in our unit, who had been injured by napalm. She
Speaker 1: had a circumferential wound burn. We she wasn't going to survive,
Speaker 1: but she was so terrified from the noise because that's
Speaker 1: what happened to her when she was in her village
Speaker 1: and she lost her parents. And I went over to
Speaker 1: her and I just held her hand and I crawled
Speaker 1: under her crib and then just the noise and that.
Speaker 1: So what I've just described to you is one night
Speaker 1: in Vietnam and the year in Vietnam. So much of
Speaker 1: it was like a nightmare. It was like an hallucination.
Speaker 1: It was surreal. It's hard to it's hard to describe
Speaker 1: what it was like to be in a field hospital
Speaker 1: when you're not only just caring for the wounded, but
Speaker 1: you're also being attacked at the same time. But what
Speaker 1: I want to really want to bring across here is
Speaker 1: the bravery of the nurses and the docks and the medics.
Speaker 1: We truly forgot about ourselves. This wasn't about us. It
Speaker 1: was about saving lives and our mission. Our mission was
Speaker 1: very clear. It was conserved the fighting st length, so
Speaker 1: we knew what our mission was. And um at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, we were exhausted and tired, and
Speaker 1: we got as much sleep as we could, and we
Speaker 1: got up the next morning and we repeated, you know,
Speaker 1: day in and day out, because like you said, sixty
Speaker 1: six nine was the year that we lost the most
Speaker 1: casualties in Vietnam. So we worked long hours and we
Speaker 1: worked extra hard, but we survived. We were young, we
Speaker 1: had the energy, we had the commitment, and we had
Speaker 1: the passion to do all we could to save these
Speaker 1: these these young men's lives. Well, you described that so vividly, Diane.
Speaker 1: It's almost as though we were. They're experiencing it with
Speaker 1: you again, just studying and harrowing and intense. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine really what it was like. What must your readjustment
Speaker 1: been like when you returned to the United States. That
Speaker 1: was the hard part, you know. We went from one
Speaker 1: war to another. You don't leave the war on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: We came home and the country was at war, the protests,
Speaker 1: the hostilities. I was happy that people were protesting the war.
Speaker 1: I hated the war too. I wanted the war to end.
Speaker 1: This was sixty and we still had several years to go.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, for some reason, what was happening at the time,
Speaker 1: a lot of the hostility and the anti war sentiment
Speaker 1: became anti soldier, anti veteran sentiment, and they took it
Speaker 1: out on us, and we were set up for humiliation.
Speaker 1: If we wore our uniform, we had things either thrown
Speaker 1: at us or hurtful words that were said about us,
Speaker 1: that we were just a bunch of drug craze glassy
Speaker 1: eyed baby killers, and and I was, what, what where
Speaker 1: is this coming from? It was so painful to hear
Speaker 1: the awful things being said, particularly about my brother veterans,
Speaker 1: because at the time people were really um. They didn't
Speaker 1: even know women we were. We were there, and it
Speaker 1: seemed like the trajectory or the target for the anti
Speaker 1: war sentiment was on the very men who I had
Speaker 1: just seen suffer and die. And we're just as brave,
Speaker 1: you know. I I defend my generation of you know,
Speaker 1: there's greatness in every generation, and there's certainly undeniable greatness
Speaker 1: in ours. And I saw that greatness in Vietnam with
Speaker 1: how are a soldiers you know, were as brave and
Speaker 1: and their patients who cared more about the guy in
Speaker 1: the next bed than themselves, and um, and and I wondered, America,
Speaker 1: people here just don't understand. They don't they don't know
Speaker 1: what we've been through, what we've done, what we've accomplished,
Speaker 1: and that we've only done with what our fathers and
Speaker 1: mothers had done, and that was serving uniform um when
Speaker 1: we were asked. So I went underground. Like many of us.
Speaker 1: I just stopped talking about it, and I wouldn't admit
Speaker 1: I was a veteran, and I refused to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And my husband, I told him he was not to
Speaker 1: ever let anybody know I was there because I just
Speaker 1: couldn't talk about it. A different kind of anguish, to
Speaker 1: be sure, but certainly very painful. Senecas one hundred women
Speaker 1: to hear. Will be back after the short break. So
Speaker 1: let's go back a bit to your earliest days. You
Speaker 1: grew up on a dairy farm in Minnesota. What influenced
Speaker 1: you that made you who you are today. I think
Speaker 1: the influence was largely that dairy farm I grew up on,
Speaker 1: and my mother and the work ethic on the farm.
Speaker 1: There were six kids, there were six of us. My
Speaker 1: mom was a registered nurse, she worked at the local hospital,
Speaker 1: and my dad was a dairy farmer. Our our farm
Speaker 1: back then, was self sustaining. You know, we we had
Speaker 1: our jobs to do and we didn't complain because we
Speaker 1: took care of the farm and the farm took care
Speaker 1: of us. You know, you have to feed and water
Speaker 1: and milk those cows or they uh, they will die
Speaker 1: and you won't have milk to go to the creamery
Speaker 1: and you won't have that milk check that provides what
Speaker 1: what a family needs. And we had to take care
Speaker 1: of the horses and those little baby calves, and my
Speaker 1: chores were to lift those buckets and go feed the
Speaker 1: little baby calves. And it was that work ethic where
Speaker 1: we had to pitch in and get the job done.
Speaker 1: And we couldn't be slackers because if we were slackers,
Speaker 1: then something we were deprived of, something like we had
Speaker 1: to take care of the garden because we needed that
Speaker 1: to can and breeze for the winter. And and then
Speaker 1: with my mother watching her as a nurse and thought
Speaker 1: I went to started working at the hospital with her
Speaker 1: when I was fifteen, and my mom was the most experienced, wonderful,
Speaker 1: compassionate nurse. She never missed a beat, and she took
Speaker 1: me to the emergency room, she took me to watch
Speaker 1: babies be delivered. She spared me nothing. And then so
Speaker 1: of course I had decided to go to college to
Speaker 1: study nursing, and I had some good experience before I
Speaker 1: even started, and that was with my mother for three
Speaker 1: years at that hospital, so that work ethic and the
Speaker 1: admiration I had for nurses, and feeling that nurses, including
Speaker 1: my mother, we're not getting the recognition and the gratitude
Speaker 1: that that they deserved so um and then finishing a job.
Speaker 1: Once you start a job, you don't you finish it.
Speaker 1: You don't do it halfway. You finish it. And when
Speaker 1: I decided after the troubling years of my homecoming and
Speaker 1: the aftermath of the war, and then my visit to
Speaker 1: the wall in and the the knowledge that I was
Speaker 1: now feeling about that the healing is finally taking place
Speaker 1: for my brother veterans, but not for my sister veterans,
Speaker 1: And that if we were going to have a statue physically,
Speaker 1: you know, visibly portraying men as men looked in Vietnam
Speaker 1: with their uniforms and and their youth, and but not
Speaker 1: to see the women was very troubling to me that
Speaker 1: if we're going to now have a statue honoring men,
Speaker 1: we need to complete the memorial with the statue visibly
Speaker 1: portraying what women look like in Vietnam and in a
Speaker 1: special place for them as well on those grounds. So
Speaker 1: that's how you came up with really becoming so intensely
Speaker 1: involved in the creation of the Vietnam Women's Memorial. Were
Speaker 1: there others involved with you? Was there a campaign to
Speaker 1: make that happen? What was the environment like, Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: no one does anything alone when you want to accomplish
Speaker 1: a mission. And my my experience as a nurse and
Speaker 1: being taught team nursing where a team, we pulled together.
Speaker 1: Of course in the military, you're a team and everybody's important,
Speaker 1: from the truck driver to the cook to the surgeons.
Speaker 1: Everybody is important. You pulled together and you accomplish your mission.
Speaker 1: I had had that experience, and I also had the energy. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: I was a high energy person, and when I founded
Speaker 1: the Vietnam Women's Memorial in three I had four children
Speaker 1: under the age of ten. Started it at a more
Speaker 1: difficult time with the responsibilities I had at home, but
Speaker 1: it was it was the timing dedication of the wall.
Speaker 1: I was there. I found names. I came home, I
Speaker 1: could no longer hide the fact that I was a veteran.
Speaker 1: I was depressed. I was crying. Um My patients were
Speaker 1: coming back to me in the night, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: put them aside. Anymore. I started thinking about each and
Speaker 1: every one of them. And I had never had a funeral.
Speaker 1: I had never had a wake for those young casualties.
Speaker 1: And now they're all coming back to me, and now
Speaker 1: something else is happening inside of me. It's it's I
Speaker 1: need to find my voice, um to to talk about this,
Speaker 1: and to talk about the women who I was so
Speaker 1: proud to have served with, and how they too deserved
Speaker 1: recognition and honor and remembrance, and they two needed to Hell,
Speaker 1: if I was having these problems, maybe they were. And
Speaker 1: I didn't even know about post traumatic stress disorder at
Speaker 1: the time. I didn't know what a flashback was. And
Speaker 1: but what I was feeling that there was something inside
Speaker 1: of me that was percolating. I had this um something
Speaker 1: burning inside of me that that women who served in
Speaker 1: the military um for since the birth of our nation
Speaker 1: have really not been properly recognized or given the credit
Speaker 1: for their contribution and place value on on their their contribution.
Speaker 1: And I was feeling this and when I told my husband,
Speaker 1: I said, well, if they're going to have a statue
Speaker 1: honoring the men, there has to be one to women.
Speaker 1: And he he said to me, well, who's going to
Speaker 1: do that. I think about that now. When he said that,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, I don't know how to do it,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to do something. And so one thing
Speaker 1: led to another, and I made a lot of phone calls.
Speaker 1: I met an artist in Minneapolis, Minnesota who said he
Speaker 1: would work with me to develop a prototype, a model, uh.
Speaker 1: And we did in five months. And then I I,
Speaker 1: you know, with others, with some Vietnam veterans who were attorneys,
Speaker 1: men and women. We got together and we started a
Speaker 1: five oh one C three so we could raise money.
Speaker 1: We identified a board of directors, We've got our I
Speaker 1: r S status for charities, you know, to receive money.
Speaker 1: And we got an account in a c p A
Speaker 1: who could do the books. And then we sent out
Speaker 1: press releases with this idea, this vision that I had,
Speaker 1: and that vision was a statue and I had no idea.
Speaker 1: I was naive. And it's a good thing I was naive,
Speaker 1: because if I had known what I was going to
Speaker 1: have to go through the ten years, I would never
Speaker 1: ever have started it because I would not have had
Speaker 1: the confidence to do it. Well, I can't do that,
Speaker 1: that's too complicated. I don't have the skills to do that,
Speaker 1: I'll be a failure. You know, all the things that
Speaker 1: it took to accomplish this mission, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: I could accomplish it. But now I'm I am developing
Speaker 1: supporters who also agree with the mission and their volunteers.
Speaker 1: We were all volunteers, all of us, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: persistence overcomes resistance, and I, yes, I led the effort
Speaker 1: and I was persistent and resilient and had the energy
Speaker 1: to keep it moving forward. But I needed all these
Speaker 1: other people to also believe in the mission and for
Speaker 1: us to pull together as a team. And then when
Speaker 1: we started getting pushed back and m a out of
Speaker 1: pushback and a lot of negative articles were written in
Speaker 1: newspapers all over the United States. Basically, who did these
Speaker 1: women think they were? They don't deserve there were so
Speaker 1: few of them in Vietnam, Almost three million men were there,
Speaker 1: but only ten thousand women. Why do they deserve a memorial?
Speaker 1: And um, all kinds of um, really mean spirited things
Speaker 1: were said about us and what happened with that. I
Speaker 1: could have just said I'm done, I'm going home. This
Speaker 1: is too hard, and I felt that way at times,
Speaker 1: but it's I truly believe they don't know who we are,
Speaker 1: they don't know what we did, and they're going to
Speaker 1: find out and once they hear the stories about what
Speaker 1: women did all around the world. Two women joined the
Speaker 1: military during the Vietnam War, and they didn't have to.
Speaker 1: We were all volunteers. Women were not drafted, were not
Speaker 1: in script it never have been. And um, yet they
Speaker 1: signed up during a very unpopular war. And I really
Speaker 1: wanted the country to know about these women. And um
Speaker 1: then there were those of us who actually went in
Speaker 1: country to to Vietnam. What was the biggest challenge would
Speaker 1: you say? I mean, clearly, this kind of negative reaction,
Speaker 1: who do they think they are? You often here that
Speaker 1: particularly with respect to a women's effort, But what was
Speaker 1: the biggest challenge for you personally? For me personally, it
Speaker 1: was I knew I couldn't give up, no matter how
Speaker 1: hard it was. And yet I had four children at home,
Speaker 1: my mother who had just retired as a registered nurse
Speaker 1: after forty five years of nursing. When she retired, it
Speaker 1: was perfect timing. It was she said, Diane, you do
Speaker 1: what you need to do. When you need to be gone,
Speaker 1: I will take care of the children. She came to
Speaker 1: our home, and I had a husband who was a
Speaker 1: very busy. He was a surgeon. He was the only
Speaker 1: surgeon in the county. He was gone all the time,
Speaker 1: night and day. I couldn't rely on him, but Mom came.
Speaker 1: So with mother home and the kids in good hands,
Speaker 1: and I didn't have to worry about them. I could
Speaker 1: travel and make the trips to Washington, d C. And
Speaker 1: all over the United States that I needed to make
Speaker 1: to garner support, whether to be a resolution at the
Speaker 1: American Legion or the VFW or Vietnam Veterans of America
Speaker 1: d a V all of our veteran service organizations. I
Speaker 1: got on their docket to speak at conventions, state conventions,
Speaker 1: and national conventions. And I just had to get out
Speaker 1: there and spread the word and then not give up
Speaker 1: because I really believed that what I was doing was
Speaker 1: the right thing, that honoring my sister veterans was the
Speaker 1: honorable thing to do, that that it all boiled down
Speaker 1: to this Milan. It boiled down to the Vietnam Veterans
Speaker 1: Memorial with the wall and more than fifty eight thousand names,
Speaker 1: and the eight nurses whose female nurses who are names
Speaker 1: on the wall, and there are male nurses on the
Speaker 1: wall as well, but this was for women. Honoring women,
Speaker 1: was that if they belong, if the men belong there,
Speaker 1: we women belong there. Because in Vietnam, if the men
Speaker 1: belonged in Vietnam, and we women were belonging in Vietnam
Speaker 1: to help bring them home to survive the war, we
Speaker 1: belonged with the men. And this was my message to
Speaker 1: to to counter this um illogical, irrational thinking that women
Speaker 1: didn't deserve to be recognized the same way we recognize
Speaker 1: men at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. If they belong there,
Speaker 1: we belong there. This is our place. And I stuck
Speaker 1: to that belief and so would not be deterred by
Speaker 1: the mean spirited um and you you did ask who
Speaker 1: where was the biggest pushback coming from the federal agencies
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. The Commission of Fine Arts with
Speaker 1: Jay Carter Brown, a very prestigious commission in d C.
Speaker 1: That's the gatekeeper to anything that goes on the National Mall,
Speaker 1: as they should be. I mean, we have to be
Speaker 1: very have a lot of um, you know, protocols in
Speaker 1: place and a policy in place that you know for
Speaker 1: what goes, what's worthy to go on the National Mall.
Speaker 1: And of course I believe women veterans were worthy and so,
Speaker 1: but they said no, and they didn't like the statue
Speaker 1: that we proposed. They didn't They said we couldn't have
Speaker 1: the site. Well, two things, I understand that public art
Speaker 1: is very controversial, and that we we might have to
Speaker 1: compromise that we could not use that statue, but they
Speaker 1: could not take the side away from us. It was
Speaker 1: for Vietnam veterans. But but long story short, in a
Speaker 1: lot of meetings and a lot of discussion, we determined
Speaker 1: to get the site. We'd go to Congress and get
Speaker 1: a bill passed. Well, it took two years and a
Speaker 1: lot of lobbying and a lot of um petitions and
Speaker 1: a lot of letters coming now from a lot of
Speaker 1: wounded veterans who are now getting behind us by the thousands,
Speaker 1: who are saying, if it wasn't for these women in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be here to write this letter. They deserved
Speaker 1: this memorial. So now we're getting a lot of support,
Speaker 1: and thanks to a piece on sixty minutes by Morley
Speaker 1: Safer who asked me to come on to sixty minutes
Speaker 1: and tell the millions of viewers. Why J Carter Brown
Speaker 1: said we didn't deserve a memorial. He said, if if
Speaker 1: they allow the women to have a memorial, they'll have
Speaker 1: to allow the Canine Core because the Canine Core had
Speaker 1: also submitted a proposal when we had that they wanted
Speaker 1: to but a statue honoring the Canine Core at the
Speaker 1: Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Well, you know, putting us in that
Speaker 1: same sentence or as a real it's like, what did
Speaker 1: he just say? So? Um again we did. We got
Speaker 1: Congress behind us to give us the site. Next step,
Speaker 1: next phase, now defying all the naysayers and pushing back
Speaker 1: on the them and um that Um, we had to
Speaker 1: have a design competition. So that took another year, and
Speaker 1: Glenna Goodacre of Santa Fe, New Mexico created the Vietnam
Speaker 1: Women's Memorial as you see today in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: On the National Mall. And it was a brutal process.
Speaker 1: We crossed every tea, we dotted every eye to do
Speaker 1: everything right. And um with the design competition and all
Speaker 1: the things that go into that, and um, we won.
Speaker 1: On Veterans Day, we dedicated the Vietnam Women's Memorial despite
Speaker 1: those who actually had built the wall. They're being um
Speaker 1: controversial and adversarial towards us as well, and we worked
Speaker 1: around them, and we worked with the National Park Service
Speaker 1: and those veteran service organizations got behind us women and
Speaker 1: we succeeded. And we succeeded largely because we got those
Speaker 1: women out of the woodwork and encourage them to tell
Speaker 1: their stories and use their voices and um, talk about
Speaker 1: what they did in Vietnam or any other place around
Speaker 1: the world. Because that memorial honors all the women who served,
Speaker 1: not just those in country, those women in country. UM.
Speaker 1: It is a sculpture in the round, and the nurse
Speaker 1: is tending to a wounded soldier. Um. The other two
Speaker 1: women are non nurses. Uh. This memorial honors all women,
Speaker 1: regardless of what core we served in or where we served,
Speaker 1: or rank. There is no rank on that memorial, and
Speaker 1: it is not the nurses memorial. It is the women's memorial,
Speaker 1: but of course it includes the nurses. Well. Thank goodness
Speaker 1: for your determination and perseverance and deep commitment to this project,
Speaker 1: because it's breathtaking to be able to stand before that
Speaker 1: memorial and understand what it represents in the service that
Speaker 1: it represents as well. You know, the U. S. Military
Speaker 1: has changed a lot. Women are now serving in combat roles, uh,
Speaker 1: and just about every other role for that matter. What
Speaker 1: do you think about the progress that's been made for women?
Speaker 1: Are we in a different place today? Absolutely? And thank
Speaker 1: goodness we are in And that is because when we
Speaker 1: bring women into the room and at the table. Let's
Speaker 1: let's just use that as an example. And now women
Speaker 1: generals at that table. Okay. And during my time, a
Speaker 1: woman could not be a general. We couldn't be pregnant.
Speaker 1: And now women who have families are also being deployed,
Speaker 1: and so we have a larger um population of women
Speaker 1: who are able to serve our nation if they choose.
Speaker 1: Because still we are not conscripted or drafted. But look
Speaker 1: at the thousands of women who step up to serve
Speaker 1: our country in some way. Uh. There were no helicopter
Speaker 1: female pilots in Vietnam. And look today you think you
Speaker 1: think of of the women who have lost arms and
Speaker 1: legs and have prosthetics, have been injured, have died. Um,
Speaker 1: the numbers, the sheer numbers because women are in very
Speaker 1: dangerous areas. And the way I try to explain it
Speaker 1: is we women in Vietnam we were also in combat.
Speaker 1: We The difference is back then we could not carry weapons,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't shoot back. We weren't trained in weapons.
Speaker 1: We weren't even supposed to have them. But I know
Speaker 1: a few that carry their own. Forty fives were in
Speaker 1: such dangerous areas. The women today are in combat and
Speaker 1: hearing weapons, and they're trained in weaponry and artillery and
Speaker 1: all of the above. And you know, when I see
Speaker 1: women today flying jet jet fighter planes and helicopters, it's
Speaker 1: just extraordinary how women what we have achieved as women.
Speaker 1: But every decade we stand on the shoulders, you know,
Speaker 1: us Vietnam nurses, we stood on those World War One.
Speaker 1: It was World War One where women were allowed finally
Speaker 1: into the military and they were nurses the founding of
Speaker 1: the army nurse score one. And then gradually, um they
Speaker 1: were ranked. They could be office as we were officers.
Speaker 1: We are officers if we're nurses. And and then just
Speaker 1: the doors that have opened, why did those doors open
Speaker 1: because we proved ourselves. We proved that we were not
Speaker 1: shrinking violets, and and that we were just going to
Speaker 1: run away when you know, times got hard, it was
Speaker 1: the opposite. We were right in the thick of the danger,
Speaker 1: and we were protecting the men. They men were not
Speaker 1: protecting us nurses in those units. I told you the
Speaker 1: story about one night in Vietnam. We female nurses, we
Speaker 1: were protecting the men. We did not go for cover
Speaker 1: or safety and tell those men had been taken care of.
Speaker 1: We were there for them. So every generation of women
Speaker 1: has proven that we are smart, that we are brave,
Speaker 1: that we measure up, and that we have the abilities
Speaker 1: and the skills with training to do what the men
Speaker 1: are doing. And you know, it's uh, it's been extraordinary
Speaker 1: to see when I see picked jers. Of course, the
Speaker 1: last twenty years Iraq, Afghanistan, and and you know the trauma,
Speaker 1: the tragedy, you know, losing men and women in that war.
Speaker 1: And I'll just share one quick little question that when
Speaker 1: the war in Iraq broke out, I got a phone
Speaker 1: call from a reporter and he'd heard that I was
Speaker 1: a nurse in Vietnam and and he said to me,
Speaker 1: and he was he was kind of a little sarcastic,
Speaker 1: and he said to me, well, are you ready for
Speaker 1: women to come home in body bags? And I said
Speaker 1: to him, look, I said, women have come home in
Speaker 1: body bags. And no, I'm not ready and I'm not
Speaker 1: ready for men to come home in body bags. I
Speaker 1: have three sons and I have a daughter. I don't
Speaker 1: want either one of them to come home in a
Speaker 1: body bag. But it's men and women who are either
Speaker 1: drafted or conscripted or join as volunteers. Like our last
Speaker 1: twenty year war, there were no there was no draft.
Speaker 1: Look at the men and women who stepped up to serve,
Speaker 1: knowing they were putting them. I was in grave danger
Speaker 1: and and willing to do that. And then the sacrifices
Speaker 1: that they have made. And then his second question really
Speaker 1: struck a nerve. He said, well, won't the men just
Speaker 1: if women are in combat over there, won't the men
Speaker 1: just be running around they can't do their jobs because
Speaker 1: they'll be protecting the women. Well, oh, you've heard all
Speaker 1: the arguments. I can hear that, my goodness. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: you know what I told him with that question. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: this has been just extraordinary, this conversation with you, and
Speaker 1: we are just about at a time and I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you one last question. What gives you hope?
Speaker 1: My hope is what has always been and and that
Speaker 1: is um confidence in the men and women in America
Speaker 1: who will step up to serve our nation. And despite
Speaker 1: the right or wrong, you know, it's hard for us
Speaker 1: when we're young to know enough. Like me, I didn't
Speaker 1: know much about I knew nothing about Vietnam. All I
Speaker 1: knew it was across the Pacific Ocean. And the hope
Speaker 1: is that for women. Women have always stepped up to
Speaker 1: serve because they care and they always will and they
Speaker 1: can bring more to the table now because they will
Speaker 1: help make decisions because their generals, their their their offices,
Speaker 1: their flag officers that they are they have graduates of
Speaker 1: West Point, the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy. Those
Speaker 1: opportunities were not available to me because we could never
Speaker 1: be what leaders women men thought women couldn't shouldn't be leaders.
Speaker 1: But now I have hope in these women who are
Speaker 1: at the discussion table about um, about war, about military
Speaker 1: readiness and preparedness, and that that our troops are better
Speaker 1: trained than we were. Uh. But I also have deep
Speaker 1: concern about homecoming, that we're not doing a good enough
Speaker 1: job to help our veterans readjust back into their communities.
Speaker 1: The suicide rate is off the charts. The suicide rate
Speaker 1: is alarming. The rate of sexual assault in the military
Speaker 1: does not seem to be disappearing. It's not even going
Speaker 1: down all that much. And these are grave concerns that
Speaker 1: I have about our our military. But I have hope.
Speaker 1: There are good people, good good people who um and
Speaker 1: I could start naming them. You know that these chairmen
Speaker 1: of the Joint Chiefs, who I had great admiration for
Speaker 1: and um, we have good leadership, and I have hoped
Speaker 1: that we will continue to have that good leadership. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, and and thank you for raising
Speaker 1: these challenges. Also because there's much more all of us
Speaker 1: can do to be respectful of and supportive of our veterans.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much, Diane Carlson Evans for what
Speaker 1: you have done. That memorial will always remind us of
Speaker 1: the service of so many UH, and we're grateful to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for the opportunity to share this story. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's a powerful story. It's the story of our
Speaker 1: country in many ways, so much courage, compassion, and perseverance.
Speaker 1: What an honor to talk to Diane Carlson Evans. Here
Speaker 1: are three things I took from the conversation. First, it's
Speaker 1: all too easy to overlook the sacrifices made by those
Speaker 1: who serve our country. When Diane Carlson Evans returned to
Speaker 1: the United States from her time in Vietnam, she realized
Speaker 1: there was a huge gulf between what she'd experienced and
Speaker 1: the public's perception. They don't know what we've done. She thought,
Speaker 1: We've only done what our fathers and mothers had done,
Speaker 1: and that was to serve in uniform when we were asked. Second,
Speaker 1: women's contributions and women's voices need to be recognized. That
Speaker 1: belief spurred Diane's long battle for a women's statue on
Speaker 1: them All. When confronted with naysays, she would remind herself,
Speaker 1: this is our place. Finally, when you're fighting for an
Speaker 1: important cause, you can find a way to make it happen.
Speaker 1: When Diane began her campaign, she had no idea how
Speaker 1: to accomplish it, but her faith in her goal drew
Speaker 1: supporters and allies who helped make the memorial a reality.
Speaker 1: Tune in next week and hear about our next featured
Speaker 1: woman and discover why she's one of Seneca's Women to Hear.
Speaker 1: Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between
Speaker 1: the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with
Speaker 1: support from founding partner PNG. Have a great day.