"He said, 'Nurse, am I going to make it?' And I said, 'Piece of cake, honey.'… Seventeen surgical procedures later, he died. And I never, ever, ever told another patient they’d make it." (Audio interview, 17:18)

Frances Buckley

Studio portrait of Frances Buckley [n.d.] War: Korean War, 1950-1953; Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Branch: Navy Nurse Corps Rank: Rear Admiral

Serving on a hospital ship off the coast of Vietnam in 1968, Rear Admiral Frances Buckley was already a seasoned veteran of the Navy Nurse Corps, having served stateside during the Korean War as well as overseas in Rota, Spain. Sailing up the coast from Da Nang to Quang Tri to Phu Bai to Chu Lai, she supervised the operating room nurses and corpsmen. Conditions in a hospital ship operating room were chaotic: often, patients had multiple wounds requiring several surgical teams to work on them simultaneously. While much of her job focused on logistics, she was also deeply affected by the patients that she treated—and sometimes lost. After the war, she continued her career in military nursing, eventually serving as Director of the Navy Nurse Corps from 1979 to 1983.