Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War (War/Society/Culture) [Hardcover]

Kara Dixon Vuic (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0801893917 | ISBN-13: 978-0801893919 | Publication Date: December 15, 2009 | Edition: 1

"‘I never got a chance to be a girl,’ Kate O’Hare Palmer lamented, thirty-four years after her tour as an army nurse in Vietnam. Although proud of having served, she felt that the war she never understood had robbed her of her innocence and forced her to grow up too quickly. As depicted in a photograph taken late in her tour, long hours in the operating room exhausted her both physically and mentally. Her tired eyes and gaunt face reflected th e weariness she felt after treating countless patients, some dying, some maimed, all, like her, forever changed. Still, she learned to work harder and faster than she thought she could, to trust her nursing skills, and to live independently. She developed a way to balance the dangers and benefits of being a woman in the army and in the war. Only fourteen months long, her tour in Vietnam profoundly affected her life and her beliefs."

Such vivid personal accounts abound in historian Kara Dixon Vuic’s compelling look at the experiences of army nurses in the Vietnam War. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Vuic allows the nurses to tell their own captivating stories, from their reasons for joining the military to the physical and emotional demands of a horrific war and postwar debates about how to commemorate their service.

Vuic also explores the gender issues that arose when a male-dominated army actively recruited and employed the services of 5,000 nurses in the midst of a growing feminist movement and a changing nursing profession. Women drawn to the army’s patriotic promise faced disturbing realities in the virtually all-male hospitals of South Vietnam. Men who joined the nurse corps ran headlong into the army's belief that women should nurse and men should fight.

Officer, Nurse, Woman brings to light the nearly forgotten contributions of brave nurses who risked their lives to bring medical care to soldiers during a terrible—and divisive—war.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Vuic offers an important new contribution to how we understand women's participation in the U.S. military after World War II.

(Tanya L. Roth H-Minerva, H-Net Reviews 2010)

Vuic's book is important reading for anyone wanting a more thorough understanding of more than just the Vietnam War or nursing history. Its relevance also encompasses enduring complexities of gender, cultural representations, and collective memory. Highly recommended.

(Choice 2010)

Utilizing a feminist paradigm, Kara Dixon Vuic's evocative and unique dissection of the collective gender experiences of Army Nurse Corps officers in Vietnam and its aftermath breaks new ground in the history of military nursing... I found Officer, Nurse, Woman quite intriguing. I can unreservedly recommend it as a valuable addition to the literature documenting nurse participation in the Vietnam War.

(Mary T. Sarnecky, DNSc, RN Nursing History Review 2011)

Excellent study... The strength of this book is Vuic's main source: nurses who served in Vietnam... Officer, Nurse,Woman enriches a growing body of literature on second-wave feminism’s broad impact and successfully challenges and complicates the dominant narrative of military history and destabilizes familiar categories—especially our notions about women and war.

(Susan Gelfand Malka Journal of American History 2010)

A well researched, well written account that will be used by professors and students who wish to understand better the complexity of gendered military service.

(D'Ann Campbell Journal of Military History 2010)

Provides an important foundation for understanding how military women reflect social and cultural gender roles, how institutions respond to and influence gender norms, and how the response shapes and challenges our understanding of citizenship and nation... Vuic's book will be important for scholars of the time period as well as those interested in gender, women's work, nursing history, and the military.

(Julie Fairman Bulletin of the History of Medicine 2011)

The best one volume treatment available that integrates the personal experiences of nurses with a nuanced understanding of social, political, military, gender, and women’s history alongside feminist theory.

(Minerva: Women and War 2011)

This is a wonderful book, chock full of oral history and riveting personal stories. It makes a meaningful contribution to Vietnam War and twentieth-century gender historiography.

(Penelope Adams Moon Historian )

Solid, engaging, insightful scholarship. To see the effective mixing of gender history and social history with military history is refreshing and welcome. Vuic addresses a deep hole in the scholarship on the Vietnam War.

(William T. Allison, Georgia Southern University )

Officer, Nurse, Woman contributes mightily to the historiography of military nurses, of women in the military, and women in the paid work force after World War II.

(Elizabeth Hillman, University of California Hastings College of the Law )

Vuic's Officer, Nurse, Woman is an important text for those interested in the history of nursing, the history of military medicine, gender studies, military history, oral history, and studies of women's work and serves as a superb example of the usefulness of oral histories in historical analysis.

(David J. Caruso Oral History Review )

From the Back Cover

Winner, Lavinia L. Dock Award, American Association for the History of Nursing

A 2010 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year in History and Public Policy

Vivid personal accounts abound in Kara Dixon Vuic’s compelling look at the experiences of army nurses in the Vietnam War. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Vuic allows the nurses to tell their own captivating stories, from their reasons for joining the military to the physical and emotional demands of a horrific war and postwar debates about how to commemorate their service.

Officer, Nurse, Woman brings to light the nearly forgotten contributions of brave nurses who risked their lives to bring medical care to soldiers during a terrible—and divisive—war.

"An important new contribution to how we understand women's participation in the U.S. military after World War II."— H-Minerva, H-Net Reviews

"Important reading for anyone wanting a more thorough understanding of more than just the Vietnam War or nursing history. Its relevance also encompasses enduring complexities of gender, cultural representations, and collective memory. Highly recommended."— Choice

"Vuic's evocative and unique dissection of the collective gender experiences of Army Nurse Corps officers in Vietnam and its aftermath breaks new ground in the history of military nursing."— Nursing History Review

"A well researched, well written account that will be used by professors and students who wish to understand better the complexity of gendered military service."— Journal of Military History

"Provides an important foundation for understanding how military women reflect social and cultural gender roles, how institutions respond to and influence gender norms, and how the response shapes and challenges our understanding of citizenship and nation."— Bulletin of the History of Medicine

"The best one volume treatment available that integrates the personal experiences of nurses with a nuanced understanding of social, political, military, gender, and women’s history alongside feminist theory."— Minerva: Women and War

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (December 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801893917
• ISBN-13: 978-0801893919
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #935,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Kara Dixon Vuic holds a Ph.D. in History from Indiana University. She teaches courses on U.S. history, women's history, war and society, 20th century U.S. social history, the Vietnam War, African American history, and world history. She also serves as faculty advisor to Phi Alpha Theta, the international history honorary society, and STAND, a student anti-genocide coalition. She also serves as the Book Review editor for Minerva Journal of Women and War.

Dr. Vuic's research focuses on questions of gender and militarism. Her first book, Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010; paperback 2011), examines the intersection of second-wave feminism with the Vietnam-era Army Nurse Corps. The book won the 2010 Lavinia L. Dock Book Award from the American Association for the History of Nursing, was named a 2010 Book of the Year in History and Public Policy by the American Journal of Nursing, and was a finalist for the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award.

Additionally, she has published articles in Signs and Nursing History Review on the army's changing marriage and motherhood regulations and on the recruitment of nurses for the Vietnam War. She has also contributed essays to Gender and Conflict since 1914: Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, The Routledge Handbook of U.S. Diplomatic and Military History, 1865 to the Present, and Handbook on the Global History of Nursing (all forthcoming 2012).

In 2011-2012, Dr. Vuic will be in residence as a Fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. During her residency, she will be completing her manuscript tentatively titled "A Touch of Home: Gender and Recreation in Twentieth Century Wars." The manuscript examines the history of military and civilian agencies' use of women to entertain American troops during World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and recent wars in the Middle East.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly remarkable and groundbreaking book, May 22, 2010

By 

Bernard von Bothmer - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War (War/Society/Culture) (Hardcover)

This is a truly remarkable and groundbreaking book, one that will be of interest to anyone with even a passing curiosity in either military, social, or women's history. Professor Vuic's careful and thoroughly researched analysis promises to be the benchmark to which all studies of women and the Vietnam War will be compared to for many years to come.

There are a number of ways that make Professor Vuic's such a very important work. For one, she has examined an issue that has been neglected for far too long. Over forty years after the Women's Movement of the 1960s, there remains far too little scholarship on the role of women during wartime. It is about time that a writer and scholar with Professor Vuic's knowledge and expertise examine the role of gender during the nation's longest war. As Diana Carlson Evans had asked the Senate in 1988, "Who decides who America will remember?"

Another factor that makes this book a must read is Professor Vuic's unique approach to her topic. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Professor Vuic gives the reader a personal account of how women impacted the war, and vice-versa. And the stories that she relates are incredibly moving and touching. Professor Vuic's study gives the reader such a wide variety of vivid and memorable recollections concerning the role of women nurses in the Vietnam War. In a war that is often reduced to statistics, Professor Vuic has provided a very human face.

Professor Vuic's fascinating text is also quite timely. It is indeed quite remarkable how, thirty-five years after the end of the war, the Vietnam War remains an essential part of the American psyche. Everything from the recent PBS American Experience documentary of the My Lai massacre to the controversy surrounding Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's past statements regarding his service during the Vietnam War demonstrate the continued power of the Vietnam conflict. And, of course, the controversial issue of women in combat has been an essential element to various analyses of our nation's current wars in both Iraq and in Afghanistan.

As a teacher of American history, I look forward to using this book in my classes. But what makes this book so important is it's usefulness to non-academic audiences alike. Anyone who wants to learn more about the Vietnam War, as well as about the impact and ramifications of the modern Women's Movement, would greatly benefit from the purchase of Professor Vuic's book. It is a must read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Honoring Vietnam Army Nurses, December 12, 2010

By 

Bryson Bryson (Huntington, WV) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War (War/Society/Culture) (Hardcover)

This is a well-researched social history of the experiences of US Army nurses in Vietnam. The author blends personal accounts with documentary evidence to create a coherent narrative and description of nurses' experiences. Anyone interested in the serious study of historical contexts and the development of social phenomena must read this text.