First U.S. Servicewomen Arrive in Vietnam

April 1, 1956

Overview

Three U.S. Army women nurses arrive in Vietnam as part of the MAAG Medical Training Team to train South Vietnamese medical personnel. They are the first U.S. servicewomen to arrive in Vietnam.

As many as 11,000 servicewomen eventually deploy to Southeast Asia during the war. Eight U.S. women die while serving their country in Vietnam, including seven Army nurses and one Air Force nurse.1

¹Mary T. Sarnecky, A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 331; Carolyn M. Feller and Constance J. Moore, eds., Highlights in the History of the Army Nurse Corps (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1995) 28–29.The number of seven Army nurses is supported by Sarnecky, pp. 387–88. According to Bettie J. Morden, The Women’s Army Corps, 1945–1978 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1990), p. 245, eight Army nurses died in Vietnam, not seven. “Only one perished as a result of an enemy attack—Lt. Sharon A. Lane. No other women service members died in Vietnam.” For Air Force nurse see Elizabeth Norman, Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 57–58. Tucker, ed., Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, p. 823. Note re: 11,000 number: There is not a wholly solid source for this information. Most sources list the number as between 7,500 and 11,000. We included the high number so as to recognize as many women as possible. Mitchell K. Hall, ed., Vietnam War Era: People and Perspectives (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 117 gives the range, as do a number of other publications.