Women Vietnam Veterans

The government can tell you how many men and how many female nurses served in Vietnam. They can even provide you names, but they know little about the other military women who served. The Pentagon used to provide an estimate; now we're told they have no accurate count. The majority of the military women in Vietnam were WACs. The other services sent women to serve in Vietnam, but they sent far fewer women, and only the Marine Corps and Navy kept an accurate record of who went and when.

Meticulous records were supposedly maintained for the WAC, but NO ONE knows where those records are today. We were told that the WAC Detachment records from USARV, Special Troops, were packed up and sent to storage at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. From there, no one knows where they were sent. Over the years, several writers have suggested that a search should be made for this paperwork. One is Colonel Bettie Morden, author of The Women's Army Corps 1945-1978 that was published by the Center of Military History in 1990. Chapter IX, titled "Vietnam; WAC Strength; WAC Standards," is 40 pages long and does an excellent job of recounting WAC involvement in Vietnam. Many of her references are unavailable or their location is unclear. It is embarrassing that no office in the U.S. government has felt it important enough to locate these records. Additionally, requests for search and retrieval of the records have been ignored. We want these incredible women to take their place of honor with the rest of the Vietnam Veterans.