Navy Medicine in Vietnam begins and ends with a humanitarian operation-the first, in 1954, after the French were defeated, when refugees fled to South Vietnam to escape from the communist regime in the North; and the second, in 1975, after the fall of Saigon and the final stage of America's exit that entailed a massive helicopter evacuation of American staff and selected Vietnamese and their families from South Vietnam. In both cases the Navy provided medical support to avert the spread of disease and tend to basic medical needs. Between those dates, 1954 and 1975, Navy medical personnel responded to the buildup and intensifying combat operations by taking a multipronged approach in treating casualties. Helicopter medical evacuations, triaging, and a system of moving casualties from short-term to long-term care meant higher rates of survival and targeted care. Poignant recollections of the medical personnel serving in Vietnam, recorded by author Jan Herman, historian of the Navy Medical Department, are a reminder of the great sacrifices these men and women made for their country and their patients.
About the Author: Jan K. Herman is Historian of the Navy Medical Department and author of Battle Station Sick Bay: Navy Medicine in World War II, Frozen in Memory: U.S. Navy Medicine in the Korean War, and Navy Medicine in Vietnam: Oral Histories from Dien Bien Phu to the Fall of Saigon. He earned a BA and MA from the University of New Hampshire where he was a Ford Foundation Teaching Fellow. Mr. Herman also served in the U.S. Air Force from 1968 to 1972 before joining the Department of State as a public information officer and writer. He also served as staff assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and the Department Spokesman. As curator of the old Naval Observatory, the Medical Department's headquarters, he organized and led a team that photographed the Moon using the 19th-century daguerreian process, thereby duplicating the first successful experiment in astronomical photography made in 1851. In the summer of 1992, he represented the Navy Medical Department as guest lecturer for Project Marco Polo, the joint Navy-National Geographic Society expedition to Egypt, the Mediterranean, and Greece. He has also lectured before audiences at the Albert Einstein Planetarium of the National Air and Space Museum, the National Academy of Sciences, the Smithsonian Institution Resident Associate Program, the Explorers Club, and the Historical Society of Washington. In 2002, he was appointed to the adjunct faculty of the International Lincoln Center for American Studies of Louisiana State University, Shreveport.