"If [the colonel] says 'You’re going to Vietnam,' then, you’re going." (Video interview, 9:53)

Elia Astrid Ortega

Ella Ortega [detail from video] War: Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Branch: Army Nurse Corps Unit: Letterman Army Hospital; 36th Evacuation Hospital Service Location: Presidio, California; Vung Tau, Vietnam Rank: First Lieutenant Place of Birth: **

Army First Lieutenant Elia Ortega was initially drawn to the romantic vision of military nursing presented to her by recruiters—and their promise that she would not be sent to Southeast Asia unless she volunteered. After a year spent at the Presidio in California, nursing patients who had been wounded overseas, she was shocked to receive orders to go to Vietnam. Based on recommendations from her patients stateside, she requested to be stationed at the 36th Evacuation Hospital near Vung Tau, where she worked twelve hour days, six days a week, and grew close to her fellow Army nurses.