This wreath is to honor four women who served as American Red Cross Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas workers in Vietnam. Our job would be more accurately describe as ‘Field Morale Workers’ because we spent our days traveling to the forward areas to talk with, laugh with, and listen to American servicemen who loved to talk about home and to laugh for a few minutes with American women who, for many different reasons, choose to be in Vietnam with them instead of home where we’d be ‘safe’. Hannah Crews died in a jeep accident, Bien Hoa, October 2, 1969. Virginia Kirsch murdered by a U.S. soldier in Cu Chi, August 18, 1970. Lucinda Richter died of Guillain-Barre syndrome, Cam Ranh Bay, February 9, 1971. Sharon Wesley died in ‘Operation Baby Lift’ near Saigon, April 4, 1975. Their names are not on ‘the Wall’ because we were civilians . . . technically. For myself, it was very difficult to feel like a civilian when I came home because my tour in Vietnam had changed me forever. With ‘our guys,’ we had shared a time together of intense sorrow (although we had almost never cried in Nam), intense laughter, and intense LIFE. Today, and every day, we acknowledge the loss of our sister ‘Donut Dollies’ and reaffirm that we will never forget them . . . NEVER!

This wreath is to honor four women who served as American Red Cross Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas workers in Vietnam. Our job would be more accurately describe as ‘Field Morale Workers’ because we spent our days traveling to the forward areas to talk with, laugh with, and listen to American servicemen who loved to talk about home and to laugh for a few minutes with American women who, for many different reasons, choose to be in Vietnam with them instead of home where we’d be ‘safe’. Hannah Crews died in a jeep accident, Bien Hoa, October 2, 1969. Virginia Kirsch murdered by a U.S. soldier in Cu Chi, August 18, 1970. Lucinda Richter died of Guillain-Barre syndrome, Cam Ranh Bay, February 9, 1971. Sharon Wesley died in ‘Operation Baby Lift’ near Saigon, April 4, 1975. Their names are not on ‘the Wall’ because we were civilians . . . technically. For myself, it was very difficult to feel like a civilian when I came home because my tour in Vietnam had changed me forever. With ‘our guys,’ we had shared a time together of intense sorrow (although we had almost never cried in Nam), intense laughter, and intense LIFE. Today, and every day, we acknowledge the loss of our sister ‘Donut Dollies’ and reaffirm that we will never forget them . . . NEVER!