Hildebrand, who is now an artist in Carlsbad, Calif., and Grace, who retired from the Navy two years ago after a 27-year career and bought a house in Annapolis, will be on the Mall today for the dedication of the Vietnam Women's Memorial. Even though once they had some time and distance to think about it, the conflict seemed problematic, they believed in their patriotic duty and the U.S. It was awful that so many boys were getting wounded, but they were helping, patching them up and sometimes saving their lives.
They wore their sharp white uniforms every day (and this was before either slacks or pantyhose made life easier), wrote letters and made tapes to send home, worked harder than they ever had.Īnd they loved it. At night there were movies, old tearjerkers like "Back Street" and John Wayne war films. They lived in a three-bunk metal room with another nurse, and spent their days and nights tending to the sick and wounded and dying, helping to amputate limbs, administering antibiotics and morphine, getting the fluids started fast through the IV. They were excited, anxious, ready for adventure - and they got it.įor the next year, Hildebrand and Grace hardly left the 550-foot ship. They were 23 and 24, and had never been out of the United States before. Pat Hildebrand and Bobbie Grace had been Navy nurses for a couple of years. And knowing that some of those fighting in the smoke would soon be under their care on the USS Repose. Putting on flak jackets and helmets, getting into a helicopter, that loud whup-whup as it rose, and seeing smoke below. Their memories of getting to the ship are such a collage of foreign sounds and sights that none stands out: spending the night before in a crazy hotel in Da Nang, looking down from their window at sandbags and soldiers below, and hearing a nightclub singer across the street warbling "Besame Mucho." Being loaded into the back of a pickup truck the next day in their dress Navy uniforms with the slim skirts and proper stockings for a ride to Dong Ha, behind the demilitarized zone.
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