Forgotten Veterans-When Janie Comes Marching Home

Veterans Day, November 11, honors the courageous efforts of American veterans. Generally, the term “veterans” conjures up images of men who faced combat in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam. But there is something wrong with this image. Women served too.

In Dallas County, there are more than 8,000 female veterans, many of whom joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, forerunner of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) established in 1943.

Maryldean Petty, president of the WAC Veterans Association in Dallas, recalls enlisting despite her parents’ objections. She was sent to Fort Ogle-thorpe in Georgia where she took a course in medicine. Petty later returned to Texas as a doctor’s aide in an army hospital in McKinney. Other veterans, like Cornelia Green, a charter member of the Dallas WACs, were sent overseas.

Green remembers sitting for five days aboard a ship off the shore of New Guinea, waiting for escorts to lead them to Manila. “We had 5,000 people aboard a luxury liner supposed to be for 500. The food got so bad, and you couldn’t take a bath except for a salt-water bath.” But, like many others, she didn’t complain. “We were there to do the paperwork so the men were free to fight.”

By the end of World War II more than 200,000 women were on active duty-forcing a radical change in society’s preconceptions about the female role. In later wars, women became familiar faces in combat zones. By the time of the Vietnam War, it was common for women to be stationed in dangerous frontline positions.

First Lieutenant Barbara Gallagher, a local osteopathic physician, describes her experience as a twenty-two-year-old student nurse at the 3rd Surgical Hospital, a MASH unit in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam during the Tel offensive. “We had basically been under attack for quite a few nights,” Gallagher says. “We were awake all night and then taking care of casualties during the day. This went on for approximately two weeks. One night, call it women’s intuition, there were a bunch of us nurses sitting in the officers’ club, and we said to the commanding officer, ’get the patients out of here,’ He asked why and someone said, ’I don’t know, but we feel like we are going to get hit hard.’” The CO called Saigon and was told that there was no enemy activity in the area. Trusting the women, the CO said, “I don’t care. I have thirteen women down here telling me to evacuate the place. 1 want it evacuated.” A half hour after the last helicopter left with the last patient, the hospital was destroyed by enemy fire.

“My nerves were shot from here to kingdom come and back.” Gallagher says. “I don’t like talking about it. It still bothers me.”

It could be argued that women vets-not just from Vietnam, but from WWII and Korea-are the forgotten veterans. But that is slowly changing as the nation acknowledges their sacrifices and shares with them in a day of recognition.