“I said, ‘What do you mean, nurses don’t cry here?’” (Audio interview, 47:20)

Mary Elizabeth Breed

War: Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Branch: Army Service Location: Da Nang and Quang Tri, Vietnam; Fort Jackson, North Carolina Rank: First Lieutenant Place of Birth: MN

At the time she enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps in 1968, casualties in Vietnam were mounting, and the war had begun to affect Mary Breed personally: her brother was twice wounded during his time in country. Entering the service to assist other servicemen in the same way her brother had been cared for, she spent time in both a large evacuation hospital (the 95th Evac in Da Nang) and a smaller field hospital (the 18th Surgical in Quang Tri). She coped with the intense stress of her environment through simple pleasures such as games of Monopoly and roller-skating--as well as endless conversations with her fellow nurses and medics, a necessary part of decompressing from the carnage they witnessed.