Vietnam War Veteran | Sue Gurley | Nurse U.S. Air Force| North Carolina

when I got on the plane to go I was excited I really wasn't scared I joined the airforce knowing that I was going to be a nurse I never second-guessed my decision to go to Vietnam whenever I've graduated and I told them I was going to join my father did offer to buy me a horse which I've always wanted if I wouldn't go and you know I just told him it was too late my name is Linda sue lamb Gurley I was raised on a farm in little town called Luke Omaha North Carolina which is in Wilson County we had a tobacco farm and so right after high school I went into nursing school which is in Wilson and that was for three years and and I already knew I was going to join a service before I ever got out of nursing schools so it just kind of all ran together you know the 60s was a very turbulent time for our country there were demonstrations flag-burning draft card burning and being a country girl it just kind of made me irate I wasn't qualified to join a service as a service person in you know into combat so I wanted to do what I could for our American soldiers what I thought was the next best thing is to go over there and take care of them I got off the plane and my head nurse was there to greet to greet me major Ferrell and from there we she took me to I guess the center where you debrief in Center or whatever where you you were debriefed about everything so I was there with a roomful of men and to my knowledge I was the only female there it was just an adventure and I was I was happy to be on on my way to fulfill him what I wanted to do my mission I was stationed at the 366 US Air Force dispensary and it was also had denied a field medical evacuation center there so we were a combination of two units the dispensary took care of the airmen that were on our base the 95th and medical evacuation was to bring patients into our Center to be medevacked out of country usually we get maybe 200 patients a day to be medevacked out of countries so that was always a very busy unit we did not have capabilities to do operations if they needed emergency surgery or something we sent them across denying on the other side of the city to the 95th Army Hospital and they had the capabilities to do surgery and they had all the specialty doctors there the name got hit with rockets a lot but this particular at night you know we heard the sirens go off and I wasn't working at this particular time but you could tell immediately that it hit something because it's a huge loud explosion instead of just the Kapow it was kaboom you know I don't know how to explain it it's obvious that it hit something and so we looked out and saw out towards where the dispenser was that there was a big fire so we some of us that were there in our quarters actually were afraid that these dispensary been hit or the hospital had been hit some guys came by and a pickup tried to pick us up and we headed towards the hospital and we could see that it was barracks at that point but they let us off I was scheduled to work the night shift at night so I stayed on and worked we admitted a lot and a lot went to the army hospital because they required surgery and they had major injuries that had to be taken care of what hit me the hardest that night was this airman came in and he wanted to he was looking for his friend and so I had a list of things of people who were admitted to the hospital and his name wasn't known there and I said and then I also had a list of names of the guys who went to the 95th devack and his name wasn't on there so you know I told him I said I said he's not on here and he asked me to look again he said because because he's not anywhere around here so I looked again and then it dawned on me that nine guys were killed at night and so obviously I didn't have his name anywhere and so he was probably one of the ones that went to the morgue that went straight to the more from the triage unit I think that's when it kind of hit me that you know somebody was killed at night but that's war and that's what you that's kind of what I expected I mean that's what I knew I would have gauge in whenever I volunteered to go there most of the guys I worked with were 18 years old or 19 years old you know I was kind of like a mother figure in a lot of ways is we talked we we had awesome relationships we we were kind of like a family so I was the officer is not like the normal officer airman relationship we were we were very close we were bonded we went to the beach together we ate together and you know we share problems together we will take the ambulance and go up to Lincoln mountain which wasn't far from denying and you know take stakes and that we detonated was so kind to give to us and you know we would take the grills out of the refrigerator and go up and grill steaks and and it was just a verbal accent continual time to spend away from the war and to look down and and all the beauty and and that from that distance to serenity and the solace and the peaceful this and then when you go back down and you go to the dispensary and you see you know the the wounded come in or or the guys that are perhaps even dying from dysentery Larry or whatever so it was just a way to take a break and it's the same country it's the same basic area but it was just to total opposite feelings and and I mean I cherish that time and those relationships if you were in the dispensary side you just took care of patients like you would in a regular hospital most of the patients that we received in the dispensary where patients who had parasitic infections any kind of injury that could you know you may see on the base the main thing was malaria parasitic diseases from being in Vietnam if you were stationed on the the medical evacuation side we had capabilities for 300 patients on that side so naturally you would you would I signed them beds according to the severity of their injuries we had a full Bay of em pew tees one night and I was working the night shift again and sitting there you could hear what they were saying and you know it's like middle of the night and a lot of them were saying that they wish they had been killed because they were going to go home deformed and they had rather to have died then too you don't go home as they saw you no less than a man that they went with so that was kind of bad at night but they lived and got out and I live - got up - I don't know what this thing you know I was a farm girl never been further than Rolly and so it helped me to grow up in a world also in to look to know different people to know different situations and it defined who I am today is I owe what I am today to the year I spent in Vietnam whenever I came home I stopped off in California for a couple more days to see some friends that I was stationed there with and so then I told him I wanted to come home and so I called my brother who lived in Raleigh and his wife and not asked them to meet me at airport and I told him not to tell my mother my father I was coming home because I wanted to surprise them so they met me at the airport and we probably got home that night about 10:00 or 11:00 my mother had already gone to bed and my father was working till midnight so um so anyway we went in a house and I think mama was probably scared about who was coming in and she you know reached her looked around the corner and saw me you know it was a really tough reunion but um she called daddy told him I was home and so you know it was it was great to be home but then it wasn't long it was I've been home probably a couple to three weeks and I was out - one o'clock in the morning my father said well weren't you out to a kind of late last night so I figured it's time for me to move on so I was Restless it was a it wasn't it was too slow I needed I needed to do something and so I interviewed for the job up in Nashville VA and and they took me on side I went to to work for 34 years in a VA system solely to take care of veterans and now I'm retired and so I'm very active with VFW which is Veterans of Foreign Wars I have never second-guessed myself as once that decisions concerned and if I ever had to do it again knowing what I know is I would [Music] you

Channel: All Pro Media

Views: 183,734

Keywords: video production, corporate video, TV, All Pro Media, Burlington, North Carolina, Media, Graphics, Vietnam, war, nurse, nursing, medic, casualties, soldiers, right, wrong, communism, war effort, politics, society, world view

Id: 3Ztmv16fgCI

Length: 11min 37sec (697 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 01 2017