This article originally appeared on the FB Group page: Vietnam War – U.S. Military, and posted by Raymond D. Hannan. I found this article on CHERRIESWRITER – VIETNAM WAR WEBSITE and had to share it with my readers.

To the soldier in combat, nurses are truly Angel’s of Mercy.

According to this story, eight nurses gave their lives in Vietnam, taking care of the sick and wounded. They cared for our military personnel as well as those of our enemy.

Lou Eisenbrandt is one of those nurses who came home and shared her story in her book Vietnam Nurse: Mending and Remembering. I am going to have to add her book to my reading list. Click here to see her book on Amazon.com.

Here are a few excerpts from the article. To read the whole article, click on the CHERRIESWRITER – VIETNAM WAR WEBSITE here or the link above.

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From her own words during the presentation: “I have Parkinson’s from exposure to Agent Orange, so I’ve instructed my body to remain still. If I do a Michael J. Fox, please forgive me, but I can’t help it. I’m also not using a laser pointer because the laser would be all over the place.”

“I spent nine months at Ft. Dix, which was a good thing. Some nurses were sent straight from nursing school to Vietnam. Ft. Dix was interesting to say the least. They even had a stockade section, and I had to check daily for improvised weapons. One prisoner escaped, but not on my shift. I usually cared for the soldiers with upper respiratory infections, at one point over 300 soldiers. We also had the fatties and skinnies. If too fat, we put them on diets; if too skinny, they got milkshakes. Oddly, they put these guys in the same ward. The skinnies stayed skinny because the fatties drank all the milkshakes. Before the year was out I received a manila envelope; ‘Congratulations, you’re going to Vietnam.’ Not the travel I expected.”

“I loved flying on the choppers since I was an avid photographer. Great region for photos, but I never took photos of casualties. Chopper pilots are, well, different. They loved to party. I spent my first three months in a medical ward treating non-combat related problems, like hepatitis and malaria, even jungle rot. By the way, the Officer’s Club was built on the edge of a cliff. We consumed a ‘slight’ amount of alcohol in there.”

“One time after their village was hit, we had 99 Vietnamese civilians to care for within a 24-hour period. When wounded Vietnamese came in, so did the whole family. We also had Vietnamese nurses. They really helped due to culture differences.”

“We waterskied but with parameters, like never going out after 1 p.m. because that was when sharks arrived. We used a Jeep to pull the boat, but I have no idea where the Jeep and boat and skis came from. There were local fishermen in LRBs, Little Round Boats, who would wave at us until we threw them a tow rope and pulled them along. They loved it.”

“You tried to be detached from the suffering, but I had an attachment to a young lieutenant who came in with his men. His unit took heavy casualties and he wanted to be with them, to see them through their ordeal. Next time it was him, peppered full of shrapnel. We were told he would lose both legs. That’s one of the few times I had to walk out of the emergency room. It rattled me. We saved his legs, but I’ve seen him since returning home. His legs are not of much use; he’s another boy I think about every day.”

I just have a feeling this will be a really great read.

So, I have ordered a copy. I will let you know how it turns out.