From 1965 to 1967, at the height of the Vietnam conflict, I served as a C-141 Starlifter navigator. That aircraft, the C-141, is the first unsung hero of this posting. A typical C-141 mission started right here at Charleston AFB with high priority cargo destined for Vietnam. The 141 and cargo would steadily continue to Nam, with only breaks to refuel and perhaps, change aircrews. It would arrive at its Nam destination in a couple days. Our aircrew would crew rest as necessary and probably change aircraft several times.
After we offloaded our cargo in Nam, a ground crew would often reconfigure the C-141 into an aeromedical evacuation aircraft for its flight back to the US. It could carry over 100 litter (medevac lingo for “laying down”) and/or ambulatory patients. The C-141 aeromedical evacuation system could take a critically burned soldier from the Vietnam hellhole to the Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, the premier burn hospital in the US, in two to three days. That system, featuring our unsung C-141, saved countless US lives from 1965 until the war ended in 1975.
Of course, the 100+ combined litter and ambulatory patients required medical care during the quick but arduous route to a premier US hospital. Enter our second unsung hero of this true story, the Air Force flight nurse.
She (remember it’s 1965-67) would, many times, be the top level of medical care for those 100+ patients. There was rarely a doctor aboard. I was continually awed by their professionalism, poise, strength, and quality of care they gave to those hero patients. They were true “angels” of the air.
My favorite monument at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC is the sculpture honoring the Nurse Corps. It is a nurse tending to a wounded soldier and it is in a pose eerily similar to Michelangelo’s wonderful “Pieta”.
I can’t think of a more fitting honor to our unsung hero, the Air Force flight nurse. Enuf.