Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
5:59 | When Army nurse Mary Ann McMinn got to the 95th Evacuation Hospital in Da Nang, she found a close knit team of doctors, nurses and Navy Corpsmen. She was well trained but had never seen an amputee so, naturally, she was assigned to an orthopedic ward full of amputees. One of her main tasks was weening the patients off the addictive painkillers.
Keywords : Mary Ann McMinn nurse Vietnam Da Nang orthopedic hospital Corpsman amputee narcotics pain morphine Darvon Walter Reed doctor evacuation
She thought it wasn't fair that the men had to go to Vietnam and the women did not, so Mary Ann McMinn joined the training program for Army nurses. That was a big help for her family struggling to pay for her university education. When the time came at the end of her training, she volunteered to go.
Mary Ann McMinn and her fellow nurses did some service in Vietnamese orphanages but they also used their down time to throw a party now and then. It was a close knit team and she still is in touch with some of them.
Coming home, there was the good, cars and stores full of goods, and then there was the bad. No one wanted to hear about Vietnam. Staying in the service helped Army nurse Mary Ann McMinn to keep an even keel when she returned from her tour.
