jhungary
MILITARY PROFESSIONAL
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My old man, well, my old man fought in Nam alright, he is quiet about his time over there though, I don’t know why back then.
He was a Navy Corpsman, an equivalent of an Army Medic, he didn’t work on the field, he worked on a place called “Evacuation Hospital” in Pleiku, a place where Casualty send to after their respective BAS Clearing station send them off. Also known as “the Meat Factory”, a nicknamed derived by nature of Evacuation Hospital, where bodies, body parts and what left of a man who were once soldier just hours ago, and they tried to piece them back together, hopefully matching the same body parts to the same body.
In a way, it was a bad gig compare to field medic, where you only see casualty from your own unit, in an evac hospital, you deal with all sort of casualty any unit in the area can throw at you, and that’s a lot…
Up there in a hospital, there are not always only Military personnel all around, you got all sort of civilian in there too, you got civilian patient, you got civvies admin worker, USO, civvies doctors and finally Red Cross personnel.
Red Cross provide volunteer in battlefield for several different reason, they maybe co-ordinate the effort of death or missing notification, general administration stuff, welfare check on Enemy POW and there were a branch called Donut Dollies whom provide entertainment and refreshment to soldiers.
What are donut dollies?
Donut dollies is a branch of American Red Cross volunteer who specialized in provide recreational and refreshment to the troop, ARC called them “Recreation Specialist Service to the Armed Force” under the supplement force program with the US military, the men, know them as “Donut Dollies”
The term Donut Dollies literally means “Donut Girl” coming from WW2 when the Red Cross volunteers serving donuts to Marine back from Operation in the Pacific. Donuts and Orange Juices. And whatnot, ironically, sometime those services were not free……
It would be a kind of a strange feeling to see women up that close in a battlefield, well, at least at that time anyway, these day, women are in the forefront of the war, you can see them anywhere, even ahead of you. So, they run a post in the local hospital trying to cheer up those wounded or dying boys and making them feel much more like home. They would also jump up and down different firebases and provide entertainment to troops that cannot access to the base.
Those girls, 20 something’s, full of energy and just out of college, really believe in the cause of serving the country and be there for the boys, sometime my father thought they actually have more conviction than they, whom actually fought the battle, do.
He once told me, there was a Red Cross Girl named Molly, a 22 years old ARC volunteer whom was with the contingent of 11 stationed in the hospital. Where the hospital in Pleiku is a big hospital, were under the management of 71st Evacuation Hospital unit. It covers the whole section of battlefield across the Central Highland and into Cambodia border.
Whenever there were any big operations, casualty would be rushed in with stacks and stacks of Medevac choppers. Molly and her Volunteer would be there to greet and serve the wounded after any Mass Cal call, they would put on their make up, apply perfume, and be wearing those blue dresses, stockings and looking very feminine.
When the Wounded start loading in, they would jump up and hit the road running like a bees, bouncing from one bed to another trying to comfort those were wounded and those were dying.
Some wounded man still can talk would usually passing their own judgment to those girl, and often times leads to a marriage proposal. Those who cannot, would just feel the warmth, smell the perfume of those girl and think of their girl back home, or their mothers when they died peacefully.
That day, my dad told me, there were one casualty who had 75% 3rd degree burn on the whole body, you cannot see any feature from his face, all of his nose, and lips, ears and eyes were all melted together. His body was burned to charcoal black and with red skin peeling; he does not look like a man, more like a chicken about to be done roasting in oven. That poor man was a dead man breathing and he does not know it yet. The very fact that he survived that long with that injury is a miracle by itself, an unfortunate miracle perhaps.
It would be hard to imagine what the man gone thru, with those hours and with that kind of a wound. Can you imagine? Burn like that, and you cannot see, you cannot hear. The only way they know that man was alive is by his constant screaming. Well, I would if I were him.
They, the doctor, the medic, the nurse tried everything to calm him down; doctor cannot do the drips as he skin was burn beyond recognition and you cannot pass any drug on him. The nurse is trying hard to peel away his skin and his clothes, where the medic trying to find enough ice to treat those burn, bucket and bucketful of ice were brought into the Triage from the O club, the mess hall and anywhere you can find them, he melt those bucket loads of ice in 2 minutes.
With him crying, it’s hard to do operation on site to other soldier, operation that essential to make sure some of them will survive. So he has to be calm down. In comes Molly. Molly was a university graduates whom come from Cedar Rapid, Iowa. She is those kind of girl you would see in a poster for Red Cross Recruitment, her skin were pale white, she was beautiful, and her smile, well, my dad told me her smile can bring any god damn situation works.
There she is, walking slowly toward that burn patient. Like someone ask her to take a look at him. Her little light blue dress had already smeared red with blood; her stockings were also dripping blood, all the way to her court shoes. Face and hand were also blood red.
What next, as with my dad told me is, she gently wipe the blood out of her face, and put a hand into her pocket and pull out a small travel bottle of perfume, she squeeze the bottle slightly while she walks up gracefully. All the time watching her do this, it seems like time has stopped and the situation was frozen forever. She got next to his bed; he was still screaming and pushing around twitching. Then she laid her hand on his forehead, gently push what left of his still blonde hair across the forehead, and her other arms reach down and trying to hold his hand. Slightly lean forward and whisper something to him, and then give him a kiss on the cheek, and about 5 minutes gone, he stopped screaming and died there with molly at bedside, at a bed in the Triage room. Molly put his hand together and walk to another patient.
That image was with him the whole tour, that grace, that time stopping moment, people don’t believe there’s an angel. But my dad said, if there were no angel in this world, she is as close as you can get.
After the Mass Cal call died down, my dad said he walk over to Molly and ask what did she said to him when she was comforting the burnt man. You know what did she said??
Molly said “Don’t worry, you're alright, I am here now”
We don’t get this kind of dead and alive story today, mostly because modern medicine can heal almost anything. The ARC SAF program was dissolved as well, as today entertainment and comforting a soldier fall into the hand of more electronic approach. But this is the story my dad remember, apart of the daily gruesome sight of human carnage. Which brought to balance by those donut dollies.
During the course of Vietnam War, 3 Donut Dollies pays the ultimate price for serving for the cause. In total, 5 ARC volunteer died during the war.
Here are some donut dollies at work
He was a Navy Corpsman, an equivalent of an Army Medic, he didn’t work on the field, he worked on a place called “Evacuation Hospital” in Pleiku, a place where Casualty send to after their respective BAS Clearing station send them off. Also known as “the Meat Factory”, a nicknamed derived by nature of Evacuation Hospital, where bodies, body parts and what left of a man who were once soldier just hours ago, and they tried to piece them back together, hopefully matching the same body parts to the same body.
In a way, it was a bad gig compare to field medic, where you only see casualty from your own unit, in an evac hospital, you deal with all sort of casualty any unit in the area can throw at you, and that’s a lot…
Up there in a hospital, there are not always only Military personnel all around, you got all sort of civilian in there too, you got civilian patient, you got civvies admin worker, USO, civvies doctors and finally Red Cross personnel.
Red Cross provide volunteer in battlefield for several different reason, they maybe co-ordinate the effort of death or missing notification, general administration stuff, welfare check on Enemy POW and there were a branch called Donut Dollies whom provide entertainment and refreshment to soldiers.
What are donut dollies?
Donut dollies is a branch of American Red Cross volunteer who specialized in provide recreational and refreshment to the troop, ARC called them “Recreation Specialist Service to the Armed Force” under the supplement force program with the US military, the men, know them as “Donut Dollies”
The term Donut Dollies literally means “Donut Girl” coming from WW2 when the Red Cross volunteers serving donuts to Marine back from Operation in the Pacific. Donuts and Orange Juices. And whatnot, ironically, sometime those services were not free……
It would be a kind of a strange feeling to see women up that close in a battlefield, well, at least at that time anyway, these day, women are in the forefront of the war, you can see them anywhere, even ahead of you. So, they run a post in the local hospital trying to cheer up those wounded or dying boys and making them feel much more like home. They would also jump up and down different firebases and provide entertainment to troops that cannot access to the base.
Those girls, 20 something’s, full of energy and just out of college, really believe in the cause of serving the country and be there for the boys, sometime my father thought they actually have more conviction than they, whom actually fought the battle, do.
He once told me, there was a Red Cross Girl named Molly, a 22 years old ARC volunteer whom was with the contingent of 11 stationed in the hospital. Where the hospital in Pleiku is a big hospital, were under the management of 71st Evacuation Hospital unit. It covers the whole section of battlefield across the Central Highland and into Cambodia border.
Whenever there were any big operations, casualty would be rushed in with stacks and stacks of Medevac choppers. Molly and her Volunteer would be there to greet and serve the wounded after any Mass Cal call, they would put on their make up, apply perfume, and be wearing those blue dresses, stockings and looking very feminine.
When the Wounded start loading in, they would jump up and hit the road running like a bees, bouncing from one bed to another trying to comfort those were wounded and those were dying.
Some wounded man still can talk would usually passing their own judgment to those girl, and often times leads to a marriage proposal. Those who cannot, would just feel the warmth, smell the perfume of those girl and think of their girl back home, or their mothers when they died peacefully.
That day, my dad told me, there were one casualty who had 75% 3rd degree burn on the whole body, you cannot see any feature from his face, all of his nose, and lips, ears and eyes were all melted together. His body was burned to charcoal black and with red skin peeling; he does not look like a man, more like a chicken about to be done roasting in oven. That poor man was a dead man breathing and he does not know it yet. The very fact that he survived that long with that injury is a miracle by itself, an unfortunate miracle perhaps.
It would be hard to imagine what the man gone thru, with those hours and with that kind of a wound. Can you imagine? Burn like that, and you cannot see, you cannot hear. The only way they know that man was alive is by his constant screaming. Well, I would if I were him.
They, the doctor, the medic, the nurse tried everything to calm him down; doctor cannot do the drips as he skin was burn beyond recognition and you cannot pass any drug on him. The nurse is trying hard to peel away his skin and his clothes, where the medic trying to find enough ice to treat those burn, bucket and bucketful of ice were brought into the Triage from the O club, the mess hall and anywhere you can find them, he melt those bucket loads of ice in 2 minutes.
With him crying, it’s hard to do operation on site to other soldier, operation that essential to make sure some of them will survive. So he has to be calm down. In comes Molly. Molly was a university graduates whom come from Cedar Rapid, Iowa. She is those kind of girl you would see in a poster for Red Cross Recruitment, her skin were pale white, she was beautiful, and her smile, well, my dad told me her smile can bring any god damn situation works.
There she is, walking slowly toward that burn patient. Like someone ask her to take a look at him. Her little light blue dress had already smeared red with blood; her stockings were also dripping blood, all the way to her court shoes. Face and hand were also blood red.
What next, as with my dad told me is, she gently wipe the blood out of her face, and put a hand into her pocket and pull out a small travel bottle of perfume, she squeeze the bottle slightly while she walks up gracefully. All the time watching her do this, it seems like time has stopped and the situation was frozen forever. She got next to his bed; he was still screaming and pushing around twitching. Then she laid her hand on his forehead, gently push what left of his still blonde hair across the forehead, and her other arms reach down and trying to hold his hand. Slightly lean forward and whisper something to him, and then give him a kiss on the cheek, and about 5 minutes gone, he stopped screaming and died there with molly at bedside, at a bed in the Triage room. Molly put his hand together and walk to another patient.
That image was with him the whole tour, that grace, that time stopping moment, people don’t believe there’s an angel. But my dad said, if there were no angel in this world, she is as close as you can get.
After the Mass Cal call died down, my dad said he walk over to Molly and ask what did she said to him when she was comforting the burnt man. You know what did she said??
Molly said “Don’t worry, you're alright, I am here now”
We don’t get this kind of dead and alive story today, mostly because modern medicine can heal almost anything. The ARC SAF program was dissolved as well, as today entertainment and comforting a soldier fall into the hand of more electronic approach. But this is the story my dad remember, apart of the daily gruesome sight of human carnage. Which brought to balance by those donut dollies.
During the course of Vietnam War, 3 Donut Dollies pays the ultimate price for serving for the cause. In total, 5 ARC volunteer died during the war.
Here are some donut dollies at work
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