Joyce Bowles was born and raised in Washington, DC. After two years at the University of Evansville in Indiana, she joined the Army Student Nurse Program, graduated in 1964, attended basic training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and then returned to Washington, DC, where she completed the psychiatric nurse course at Walter Reed. Bowles deployed to Vietnam in the summer of 1966 with the 24th Evac, but because the unit’s hospital at Long Binh had not yet been completed, she served five months on temporary duty (TDY) at the 85th Evac Hospital in Qui Nhon. Though her MOS was psychiatric nurse, she was assigned to the orthopedic ward, helping young Soldiers “put it back together and get them ready to go home.” She remembers her time in Vietnam fondly; the good food and comfortable quarters, the holiday celebrations, the 93rd Compound Club, and the “beautiful, totally unexpected … ‘Qui Nhon by the Sea.’” She also recalls looking after Vietnamese kids with worms, and advocating for wounded Soldiers. Bowles returned home to an indifferent society. She stayed in the Army, earned a master’s and doctorate in psychiatric nursing from University of Maryland at Baltimore, taught at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing, and completed both the Advanced Officer course and Command General Staff College by correspondence.