Angels of War: A Vietnam Nurse
Janis Nark served one tour during the Vietnam War, 1970-1971.
“I learned so many lessons, but it took me years to put them into words or concrete thoughts. Vietnam hardened me.”
One tour in Vietnam was more than enough for Janis Nark, who served as a nurse during the Vietnam War from 1970 to 1971. Inspired to serve others after she lost her Drama scholarship from Eastern Michigan University, Janis found herself shipping off to boot camp in the spring of 1970.
In 1956, the first female service members arrived in Vietnam. Approximately 11,000 women would end up serving in Vietnam. Close to 90% were nurses. Janis Nark was one of them.
Civilians also served. They held positions in the Army Special Services, supply, air traffic control, cartography, the USO, American Red Cross and others in support of the troops.
The day Janis left for Basic Training in her new Ford Maverick, her father checked the oil, the weather, the antenna – anything to avoid acknowledging his little girl was leaving home for the Army.
“Bye Mom! Bye Dad! I love you!” She waved one last time and headed out, never contemplating that would be the end of her childhood and a brutal induction into irrevocable adulthood.
Janis, like her fellow nurses, went to her job and faced the perils of enemy fire, horrific heat and humidity, disease, insects, isolation, long work hours and sleepless nights. She treated wounded and dying soldiers in Southeast Asia for a tour, then left to serve in a West Coast military hospital. Jets carried the injured from the frontlines in Vietnam back to the U.S. for care within hours. Janis cared for men who were still boys by age, but had their innocence taken away in the blink of an eye.
It was not an easy job, but no one said it would be.
One quiet morning around 2 a.m., the soft sobs of a seventeen year-old resonated through the quiet halls of the medical ward Janis was working. The crying patient was skinny with blonde hair and big blue eyes. He had lost both legs and one arm to the war. Reaching his bedside, the young soldier looked up at Janis, tears building up in his eyes and desperately asked, “Why?”
“He had been to war and back and couldn’t answer it, and was looking to me…for answers,” Janis recalls. “I smoothed the hair back from his forehead and I gave him morphine for the only pain I knew I could take away.”
Through heart-wrenching moments like these, Janis said she and her fellow nurses did the “best we could with who we were and what we had.” She learned about everything from gunshot wounds, to different weapons, to booby traps, and the toll of war on the young mind.
“I learned never to wake a vet standing next to him. You could get hurt that way,” she said.
However, Janis mostly learned about amputations. “Almost half of my patients were amputees; many of them had lost more than one limb,” she added.
There were times when she felt helpless; feeling like treating wounded soldiers would have no end. One of the hardest realizations was sending men back into battle. Soldiers would arrive in the medical ward half conscious, only to open their eyes and come face to face with nurses like Janis. They looked for reassurance and peace. She said the patients called them angels.
“There was a great feeling of camaraderie,” she said.”It was wonderful to see wounds heal, to see physical and mental progress. A lot of good happened.”
While there were a lot of lessons to be learned in Vietnam, it took Janis years before she could put her memories into words or more concrete thoughts. Her experience as a Vietnam nurse caused her to become emotionally destroyed by PTSD. Like so many women she served with, she was haunted by the very injuries she treated, and the death she faced day in and day out.
She says this tumultuous time made her stronger. “It heightened my sense of humor. It made me realize what’s important in life and what’s not. ”
Many returning veterans came home quietly. Society did not seem to want to acknowledge that young men and women had been there. Others simply did not want to discuss their service. Janis did not do so for 20 years. “I was just another nurse. I never told any civilian I was in the Army.”
If Janis ever wore her uniform in the outside world she was “looked at with one of two emotions: curiosity or disdain.” Even during the Women’s Liberation Movement, underlying messages of ‘nice girls wouldn’t have gone to war’ rang loud and clear.
Following Vietnam, Janis wasn’t done serving her country. She stayed in the Reserves, serving once again during Desert Storm. She retired in 1995 with 26 years of service behind her. Looking back, Janis said, “I learned skills that I never would have. I learned to think outside the box at a very young age. I learned survival skills, how to improvise, the list is long. And I am grateful.”
When The Wall was dedicated in 1982, it became a symbol for national reconciliation. It brought men and women together to face loss and begin a process of healing. Eight women are inscribed in black granite alongside their brothers on The Wall.
The recognition for women came on Veterans Day of 1993, when the Vietnam Women’s Memorial was dedicated. Thousands were in attendance, including: air traffic controllers, Red Cross workers, intelligence operators and nurses. These “angels” and veterans were met with praise and thanks. Men saluted and cheered, others yelling, “Thank you! Thank you!”
Vietnam women veterans were not alone and their service would not go unnoticed.
When asked how she thought women’s service in Vietnam impacted or inspired women serving today, she replied, “We served, suffered, paved the way, like so many women before us.”
Women who served in Vietnam, including nurses, and women who serve today join at The Vietnam Women’s Memorial during its 20th anniversary. Veterans Day, 2013.
These angels, women who risked their lives to selflessly give all they had to comfort and heal, are forever memorialized and honored on The National Mall in Washington, D.C. Once bringing peace and comfort to the suffering, they now bring solace to one another. Through their words and tears, their healing continues. Today, they hold each other close and lift themselves up. Their service is immeasurable and we thank them.
Thank you to all of our Vietnam “angels,” and “Welcome Home.”
Parts of this blog was contributed to by Scattered Memories, written by Lt. Col. Janis A. Nark, USAR (Ret.). Nark is currently serving on the VVMF Board of Directors.
Thank you from a Vietnam combat vet 1971 of the 25th Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division. You were and remain our angels.
GOD BLESS AND KEEP YOU ! ! !
Thank you, Mam
Semper Fi
Sgt K. A Schinze USMC NAM ’68
Thank you for your dedication and your service. Your sacrifices of emotion are every bit as valuable as the physical care you provided and certainly more difficult.
Wonderful article, thank you. As a former USAF Flight nurse, I appreciate the recognition you gave to the nurses. When my son was in high school JNROTC, (pre 9/11) I remember we were at some program at an AF base, he was so proud of me being a vet, he went up to a pilot standing by his fighter jet and told him proudly, “my was in the AF”, he turned to me and said, “What did you do?” I replied, “I was a flight nurse.” He responded, “Oh, medical”
Clearly, he had never been to war.
Serving in the military changed my life in so many ways. Like your article about Janis, I have instinctive survival skills, think out of the box, and can “M.A.S.H.” anywhere with most anything.
Loved the article. Thank you for sharing.
Your description of conditions we all endured rings very true. My 18 months in-country included a stay in the Air Force hospital in Cam Rahn Bay. Thank you and all the nurses there for your service.
1st Cav August’69/’70 THANK YOU
Thank you Fred for posting and Janis for sharing your story about your feelings and great care for our wounded Vietnam Service Members. We, as soldiers, can never thank you enough for all that you did under extremely difficult conditions…God Bless.
Bill Covington….Dustoff Pilot, Vietnam 65-66 and 68-69
Thank you so much. Our nurse-corps were remarkable and brave, all volunteers. Without you, I could not have done my job. I am the lucky one…I married the fabulous 1st Lt. Jeannie Mitchell who was the best OR nurse I have ever worked with, before or since. Dr. John Baldwin Surgeon 24th Evac 68-69 Major, Army
I noticed that Janis had been a theatre major at one time. I recently had the honor to direct a show based on the book, A Piece of My Heart. It is the oral histories of women who served in Vietnam. Even though I had been through the Vietnam era as a young teacher, I really only learned about it in detail while directing that show. It was also my great privilege to get to know two nurses, Kathy Lee and Lou Eisenreich, who served as our technical advisors. They spent several hours working with my cast(6 women and 1 man), showing them how to do the medical procedures of 1969-70, and what life was like for them during their respective tours of duty. All of us involved learned so much from them. It was also my privilege to be sponsored by a VFW post in Lee’s Summit, Mo. where we rehearsed one of the productions. There, we had built in help. If we needed advice on proper salutes, proper placement of insignia, how to handle a rifle and sidearm in pantomime, we only had to go over to the bar and ask for help. These men gave such good instruction to my cast. As for Lou and Kathy, both suffer from results of exposure to Agent Orange, and have since they returned in 1970. Lou kept a diary during her time there and in the past 2 years has written a book which is now in it’s 2nd printing. Both ladies speak frequently around the Kansas City area to civic groups, school groups, and ceremonial events honoring Vietnam Vets. In our play, we recreated small portion of the wall which, when lit from behind, showed the names of the 8 women who died in Vietnam, as well as about 20 of those men from this area who died. We also re-created the women’s memorial statue in Washington DC. It has been a great honor for me to meet and know these women plus all the other vets who were so helpful in making our show a special one.
Most learned of Vietnam from officers never on battlefield
….because of the tubes from the oxygen attached to my traech and the IV’s attached to my arms and left ankle the nurse could not get me under the bed during a rocket and mortar attack at the 71st evac probably around the 23 to the 25th of May. She laid a few flak jackets on me and the guy in the bed next to me and wished us good luck. She exposed herself to danger to protect us. She was wearing fatigues or scrubs, a steel pot, a .45 on her hip, carrying a flash light but best of all she was able to smile and calm me down. This was the most meaningful while in a helpless and unarmed moment of where the next round would hit. To all nurses at the 71st right through to Walter Reed ward 36 THANK YOU! But to the nurse that came and helped us during incoming, thank you and I hope your life is perfect.
I still remember the faces of those Nurses on 8/7/68 taking after me at Da Nang Hospital after Surgery Both Feet & Legs Plus entire Body with Multiple Shrapnel Wounds.I felt nothing from waiste down and asked nurse to raise me up.
Seeing bandages both feet and le I was happy to see they were still there.I am so greatful for the service of those great nurses only sad I never got to thank them.Came Home September1st 68 Medivac on Cargo Plane,Nurse on board told me I had choice of any meal on board fore I was only passenger eating.I asked why and followed her eyes to floor re I seen nothing but Wall t Wall Coffins.I never spoke a word of Vietnam to No one but my wife for Americans treated me as if I was the Enemy
Anyone get loaded into cargo planes and shipped to Clark AFB for refuel and then on to Ft Hood for Surgery due to injuries sustained in VN?