nearly 60,000 US servicemen died during the Vietnam war, and one women: Sharon Lane, a military nurse.
Saluting the legacy of Sharon Lane, a nurse killed in Vietnam | cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Today, Sharon Lane would have been 72 if she hadn't been killed during a rocket barrage that hit the Army's 312th Evacuation Hospital in Chu Lai, Vietnam, in 1969.
By
Brian Albrecht, The Plain Dealer
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on July 07, 2015 at 7:30 AM, updated July 08, 2015 at 7:42 AM
If people remember Lane, it may be as the only military nurse slain as a direct result of enemy fire in that war. But there are others who remember a more life-affirming legacy of this 1961 Canton South High School graduate who became a nurse, an Army officer and an example for those who followed her in both careers.
Growing up, "she was always caring for someone or something," her mother, Kay Lane, once told a newspaper reporter. "She always had a cat or dog or some animal that she was taking care of."
So it probably wasn't surprising that she attended the
Aultman School of Nursing in Canton after high school. In 1968, she joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps Reserves.
Philip Bigler, author of the 1996 book
"Hostile Fire: The Life and Death of First Lieutenant Sharon Lane," wrote that the appeal of possible travel and work at different military posts might have drawn her to the service.
After her training and a stint at
Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver, Colorado, Lane volunteered for
nursing duty in Vietnam. Some 11,000 American women were stationed in Vietnam during the war, most serving as military nurses. Eight died, from various causes.
In a letter that Lane wrote, cited in Bigler's book, she said, "There, at least, you are busy 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, and you learn everything."
And she did, as Lane noted in letters home that described her long days of work after arriving at the 312th Evacuation Hospital in April, 1969. She wound up assigned to hospital wards that treated war-injured and ill Vietnamese, sometimes including captured enemy soldiers, but mostly women and children.
She became well aware of the risks of nursing in a combat zone, including rocket and mortar attacks on the American base where the hospital was located.
In a letter home, cited in Bigler's book, Lane said that during one barrage, "We got all of the patients under the beds that we could and put mattresses over the ones in traction, etc. Very interesting place but hardly anyone here is scared. It is just like part of the job."
That part of the job tragically caught up with her on June 8, 1969, just as her night shift was ending. A 122mm rocket slammed into the ward at sunrise, killing Lane and a 12-year-old Vietnamese girl. They suffered shrapnel wounds to the neck. The rocket injured 27 others.
In her last letter home, four days before her death, Lane noted, "Still very quiet around here. Haven't gotten mortared for (a) couple of weeks now."
Lane was buried at Sunset Hills Cemetery in Canton and posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Vietnam Service Medal, National Defense Medal, and Vietnamese Gallantry Cross. She was subsequently inducted in the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame and awarded the Ohio Medal of Valor.
