Written by Jeanne “Sam” Christie (with Todd DePastino)
When I left Vietnam in 1968, I packed away the experience like a duffel bag and moved on with my life. Or so I thought. I had worked for the American Red Cross at the big recreation center—the DNG Center—on Freedom Hill in Da Nang. It was a place for Marines to take a break from war, and I was a Red Cross Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas (SRAO) volunteer — affectionately known by the troops simply as a “Donut Dolly.” My job was to bring some psychological health to the soldiers reminding them of their wives, sweethearts, sisters and loved ones. In general, “home”.
We had Vietnamese staff—mama-sans, gardeners, a young boy who checked in weapons. We also had Hoa, a northern transplant who was both artist and interpreter. I relied on Hot, like we all did.
Marines’ weapons started disappearing at the DNG Center. Time and again, Marines would pass their M-14s and other weapons to the young boy, and they would be gone when it came time to leave the center. Missing weapons are a serious problem, and Marines were getting in hot water.
Suspicion fell to the young boy, who didn’t speak English.
I asked Hoa quietly to warn the boy not to come in because I knew he would be detained and interrogated. But he showed up anyway. I was ordered to escort him to headquarters. I’ll never forget his screams when he realized what was happening, how he clawed at me, pleading. I signed the paperwork, turned, and walked away, doing what I was told.
I carried that moment deep inside me for years without knowing the weight of it.
Back home in Milford, Connecticut, I did what many women do: I worked part-time jobs, raised children, cleaned, cooked, chauffeured, taught arts and crafts at the Milford Senior Center, and designed fabric for a New York textile firm. I kept busy. I believed I had adjusted. After all, I had come home uninjured. So many of the men I knew hadn’t. I saw the toll of war up close—men blown apart, boys grieving their buddies. I watched them leave the base for missions, knowing some wouldn’t return. I visited the wounded. I comforted the broken. And I came home.
But it didn’t stay buried.
One evening around 1980, I had a couple of Vietnam vet friends over. We were going through old slides—images from our time over there. That’s when the walls fell in. My kids would run up to me shouting, “Mommy! Mommy!” and all I could see was the Vietnamese boy I had taken to HQ. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Neither did Fred, my husband.
I was desperate. I went to the New Haven Vet Center. At the door, they told me I wasn’t a veteran and couldn’t come in. But a few guys overheard and stepped in. “She was there,” one said. “She should be able to talk.” And that’s how I got through the door.
That moment changed everything.
A few weeks later, Fred and I were in Boston. I called the Vet Center again. This time, the counselor—Claude Thomas—told me to come right over. I hailed a cab, gave the address. When we pulled up, the cabbie looked around and said, “Lady, you don’t want to get out here.” I was dressed like a proper Junior Leaguer, completely out of place in that neighborhood. But I stepped out. Claude—former door gunner, tough as nails—was waiting. We sat down, and I told him everything. All the ugly parts. He didn’t flinch.
Claude was a gift. He even came down to Connecticut later and walked around the block with Fred, helping him understand what was happening to me—what trauma does, what war does to people, even those who weren’t pulling triggers.
That was the beginning of my therapy. And my mission.
Fred and I started searching for the other women I’d worked with—civilian women who’d served in Vietnam. Pat Rowan and Maggie Ware Pierson were the first we found. Fred did most of the digging. I made the calls. And when I spoke with those women, I didn’t have to explain anything. They got it. They’d been there. They’d heard the mortars. They’d been shot at. They’d held hands in hospitals and smiled through heartbreak. Talking to them made me realize: we weren’t alone. We just needed to find each other.
Some women didn’t even know they were suffering. One woman told me, “I’m fine, really. I’m happy.” Then she added, “But if I see a Vietnamese person in a store, I have to leave.” She didn’t understand where the feelings came from. But I did.
We’d all been told—implicitly and explicitly—that what we did “didn’t count.” We weren’t combatants. We weren’t “real” veterans. So when the nightmares and panic attacks hit years later, we thought it was just us. That we were weak or broken.
But it wasn’t just us.
In 1982, the first national Vietnam Veterans parade was held in Washington, DC. I said I wanted to march—with the American Red Cross. But the ARC told me no. We had to march with our home states. I argued: we weren’t there as “Connecticut” or “Texas.” We were there as Red Cross women. After a lot of back and forth, they agreed—if we wore a set outfit, arrived at 0800 sharp, and followed instructions. They even assigned us guards.
We stepped off. Just six of us. But the crowd saw us and yelled, “Donut Dollies!” That moment—the recognition—was everything. As we neared the reviewing stand, the noise died down. Dead silence. I called out, “Eyes right!” and we smiled big as we passed.
Afterward, we met so many Army nurses. They welcomed us like sisters. That day wasn’t just symbolic—it was healing.
Eventually, I put together a health survey to try and understand how widespread our experience was. I learned quickly: I wasn’t alone. Thousands of women had served—an estimated 33,000 civilian women in Vietnam. Many had returned with invisible wounds. And most hadn’t been asked a single question about it.
We began gathering, sharing, listening. Healing.
Some of the women from that parade are gone now. But I still have the photos. The letters. The memories. And the sense of duty—to keep telling this story. To make sure no one else feels alone. That they know there’s a reason for what they’re feeling. That they’re not broken. That they can heal.
It’s been a long road. But I’ve never walked it alone—not really.
—Sam Christie
