35thniversary anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans memorial. Learn more about these and all our Public Programs and exhibits by consulting our monthly calendar of events online. Or, check our website and sign up for email updates. You will also find information about other National Archives and activities. Another way to get more involved in the National Archives is to become a member of the National Archives foundation. The Foundation Supports our education and outreach activities and there are applications for membership in the lobby. And a littleknown secret i keep telling people about, no one has ever been turned down for membership in the National Archives foundation. [laughter] as i mentioned earlier, todays program is one of a series of events we will be presenting in conjunction with our new exhibit, remembering vietnam. The exhibit is a mediarich exploration of the vietnam war, featuring interviews with americans and the enemies veterans, civilians, and firsthand experiences of the events, as well as historic analysis. The fascinating collection of newly discovered and i collect film footageludes and artifacts that illuminate 12 critical episodes in the war that divided peoples of both the United States and vietnam. Remembering vietnam draws on National Archives records, federal and civilian military records, president ial libraries, still photography and motion recordings. Ound i ask all Vietnam Veterans and any United States veterans who served during the vietnam november 1, 1950 fivemay 15, 1975, to stand and be recognized. [laughter] [applause] thank you, for your service. And, welcome home. As you exit the make gallon mcgowan theater, volunteers will present each of you with a vietnam veteran pin. On the back of the pen is an boss, a grateful nation thanks and honors you. The lapel pin is the nations lasting memento of thanks. From we have come to hear a very particular group of Vietnam Veterans. We estimate 1000 women from the army, marine corps, navy and air flightserved as controllers, typists, physical therapists, dietitians, communications specialist, nurses and much more. In her book, women vietnam major donnaergeant lowery tells their overlooked story. In her 26 years of service, Sergeant Major donna lowery served for overseas tours. In 1967 she was in the initial group of armyenlisted women to serve in the and him. After her retirement from the army she worked with the Washington State department of veterans affairs. Since her retirement she has been active in her community and received one of the governors 50 volunteer awards for her work with the homeless, and also received Washington States outstanding Women Veterans award for 2011. Please welcome Sergeant Major donna lowery. [applause] donna good afternoon, everybody. Im so excited about being here because im going to tell you about a fantastic group of women that, in this country have been. Verlooked until this time when i speak of the vietnam war, i am talking about a time in our country when women were segregated. Armyhe army, we had the nurse corps and the Womens Army Corps. For the air force we had the womens air force, the navy, we. Ad the navy women and the marines, we had the marine women. Each of our groups was led by a colonel there was only one director for each of the womens and thats the woman who made the decisions for those of us who served under them. In this, we were meantgreen uniform with a beret ntg uniform. The colonel told me shend thought this green uniform was as cute as could become after shopping at saks fifth avenue. Another time she was shopping at sex fifth avenue and i asked her where we got our drill sergeant cap. And she said to me, well, first said there is this fascinating display, and i saw this. It looks like a safari had. Is a wide brim, it comes with mosquito netting, you can just imagine yourself out with the elephants. And that is how we got our drillsergeant hats. Services, we had one woman and thats the woman who made the decisions for each of us. Colonel. Would be a later, we were permitted to have one woman general in charge of each of our women corps. The women im going to talk to you about today, these women are not nurses. I tell you, as a retired Sergeant Major, from the time that i left vietnam as a staff sergeant, to the time i retired as a Sergeant Major, i must have had at least 1000 people come up to me, whatever my rank was and say, Sergeant Major, so you were a nurse in vietnam . I didnt know that. The nurses did an incredible job. We are really, really proud of them. Of this is a Group Approximately 1000 women that have never received any recognition, and that is my purpose here today. Phyllis k miller is a Master Sergeant who lives in north carolina. She is in fact, one of my very closest friends and she has put together every powerpoint whichtation i have given, is a lot because im always changing what i want to say. So, this is the front end back of our book. Haved 20 women, and we two of the bookteam members here today, but we had 20 women around the country, and some of them put in excessive hours. We were working 6070 hours and we were working for two and a half years to get this book published. I paid extra for the design of the cover because i wanted a really nice one that would stand out. And you can see that the women uniforms and that is because we went to vietnam in our class b uniform. It is a skirt and a top with our heels, with our puffy hair. Untilat was our uniform and then weed changed into the fatigues. Only put 10 women on the back, that i wanted to recognize, but truthfully i wish i had more room to recognize all 20 of them, because without them there would be no book. The number of women that served in vietnam, we dont know. Honestly, we dont know. It is a disgrace for this country that we do not know that. I put in a freedom of information act request after asked,k came out, and i one,ou give me the number 2, 3, four. This is the number we have been hearing since 1997, since a group of women got together at the vietnam wall and then, they started the vietnam womens vets , an organization we are apart of. What happened to them was that, they said ok, there is approximately 1234 over, we really dont know. But we really do know, and now the figure is 1230 four. So we went on like that for years and i cant tell you had disappointing it is to the women, to know that they served and did a tremendous job, but that they were not recognized. When i talked to freedom of information, they said to me, ok, here is what we can do for you. We can element the nurses from our database for you, and then we continue everybody that was in all of the services, but we cant give you any names. And i said, thats useless. What am i going to do with this piece of information . Then they said, heres the truth. We dont know who served over in vietnam. That is the truth. And i am ok with that. Im ok that people dont know those of us who served in vietnam. Im not ok if people go around the world telling people like, they know something and they really dont. Im going to tell you in a few minutes about my new hero, the person who told us the truth. Team by knowing who had the greatest number of and i started by having the women commanders. But most of our women commanders are deceased and we only have one First Sergeant that is li alive, and that is marion crawford. Dy, who was my first commander, was ill. I will introduce you to her in a little while, she took several roles because the commanders were deceased and we needed somebody who would take over that. Of 20built a Team Incredible women that were really committed to having this history. Here are the numbers. We found 863. There is probably more than 1000 but we dont know. We have our database administrator here today and her name is marcia cricket kohler. She is from mississippi and she is the one who is taking care of our women. I was really concerned about, what were we going to do with the deceased . We didnt know who died, or when they died, and they got no recognition for their service whatsoever. Has taken on that task. In his are calling it she will be working on taking care of us until the very last, i can just see her at the grave telling someone, this is very important. We want to make sure we have our database right. So she has found 288 of our women. Weav stories. So we have stories like pat jernigans, who is here. She woed with the family of a major who was the first woman went to vietnam. And we have other family members whateverorked with, connection we could make so that we could recognize as many of these women as possible. 460 images, old black and whites, they are grainy. We have 460 of them. The chapters are that list the women individually, and it starts from the beginning when major dohring was there in 1962, 2 when the last women left, which was in 1973. My newto read you from hero. This is colonel mark franklin, chief history and legacy branch, United States army, american war commemoration. And he says, when i first came on board with the commemoration in 2011 on the one of the first dongs might team tried to was determine an accurate number of women who served in vietnam, both nurses and nonmedical, because i wanted to do a series on both. Women veterans, we were able to get pretty solid eta from each of the Services Except for the army. And that is pretty sad, to have that told to you when we have the Largest Group over there. They were a challenge, according to colonel franklin during and after some pretty expensive research, we were able to find accurate data that would provide something more than round formates or guesstimates, army Women Veterans who served in vietnam. Left. Imately 700 but again, this is a very rough estimate because, by their own admission, the United States army did not keep good records of vietnam veteran women. If someone has that information, and is willing to share it with us, i would be most grateful. But i just dont think it is out there, and that is what i got from him earlier this week. We have 35. We know there are 35 of them. I have got to quantico. Mary is our marine representative and did an excellent job. I have given her permission show on so that she and the quantico people can do a report on the women marines by themselves. I hope that happens. The navy, the navy identified eight women. We found for other women thanks to penny adams, who was on the im not sure if she was on the sanctuary but she was on one of those two ships, the republic or the sanctuary. A were hospital ships off of da nang. So we count 12 now, instead of the eighth. We have approximately 200 air force women. We dont have a good count on them, at all, and we are working on it. As you can see from the numbers that the army has the greatest majority over there. So, this is me. And this is to show you our uniform that we wore. And i said, can you guys find somebody who has got this big puffy hairstyle . Find out who has got the worst one, and lets put it up. And they said, that would be you, donna. [laughter] donna so, here we have our colonel who felt that this was appropriate that we dress like this in a war zone. The next photo, you are really going to like. This is our beautician. We had a beautician in the so he coulderre, always keep our hair nice and flopped like this. They put in the compound a permanent trailer so we could go to the beautician and have a manicure or pedicure at anytime. Very important, im sure. To whom, i dont know. So this is the start. In 1962, she served by herself. In 1965, about the same time general west moreland was interested in advisers to the ,omens Armed Forces Corps they were vietnamese, and in having stenographers come over. The military stenographers came over in vietnam for the first time in 1965, and they went to stay at hotels. They never became part of the wac veterans. Of hotels a number where the women were billeted, because later we had specialties. Thethe women advisers to the inorces corps, visor from south vietnam, he decided he was going to have a ,omens Armed Forces Corps made up of exclusively vietnamese women. So he said well, when the president asked general west moreland he said i will send you to wacs. Officerend you a wac and i will send you an enlisted woman. So, that was very well accepted. Later we had the air force, they were sent over and they had a womens air force that was made up of the aetna my is that was made up of vietnamese women. Was theemily gorman director of the Womens Army Corps in november, 1964. She received a letter from Brigadier General been sternberg , directing the assignment of the women and offering friendly advice. Officer should be a captain or major, fully knowledgeable of all the operations of the wac school and the training conducted darian. She should be extremely intelligent, and extrovert, and beautiful. Haveac sergeant should some of the same qualities and she should be able to type, as well. Colonel gorman replied to the general, they would certainly and then added that the combination of brains and beauty is, of course, common in the wac. So that is where we were at that particular time in our history. See theou can vietnamese women, and they are in their traditional dress. On the left inside is major wilkes. On the righthand side is Sergeant First Class adams. You can see they are in the class b uniform and that they have heels on. And here they were. Whenou imagine, 1965 is our women started. And this is from 1971. And it was really a tremendous time for a connection with our country because 51 of those fortamese officers went to mcclellan, alabama, 50 of them went to the basic class. Them went to the basic class and also, the advanced officers training. B. This is tent city this is where it all began for some of us. Tent city b, this is the wac detachment. We had quonset huts, those metal ones. Deere, friend donna we were in this one. And the bullet came at it, in donnas bed. And had she been there, she would have died. You would have been the first casualty. This here is our patio area. You would come to the wac detachment, to the building, which had been a French Building before. Men or would go and the not permitted in, unless we were at a party. If we were at a party, then they could come. Otherwise, they would come and check us out, just like you would check something out, they would check us out. And this year, you see a little umbrella thing . Big enough so that one couple could sit on it. One male, one female, sitting out there. That was the dating area. If he didnt get there quickly, then we had our teaching here, in the gravel. Be one man, one woman, one man, one woman, just sitting there for hours after we got off of work. Then we had the road, here. Roads, those were engineered and then we had the permit or. And this is avian and then we had the perimeter. This is a vietnamese golf course. This entire area was destroyed, so we moved in july, 1967. At the biggest, tet offensive, and had we not moved, the entire base would have been destroyed. Everything. The monsoon season was really outrageous. I walked from out here in the orderly room, walked over here, and im dry. I get to this point, one day, and im soaking wet. Here is the monsoon. By the time he gets my office, over here, im try again. Dry again. Im going to show you a picture of the monsoon. Here is the monsoon. The reason i selected this is ok, good. Ere maybe i pushed it too hard. Ok. You can see that these are sandbags. And these are sandbags at one of the Office Buildings but this is the way they were, backed up detachment. The wac we didnt have bunkers for wouldody so some women just go behind one of these sandbags and stay there. The other reason i selected this picture is because this is a wig. Hair in thoselong days and as long as her hair did not exceed the bottom edge of your collar, you were fine. So i put all my hair under it, i had on my weight and i was perfectly fine. Bathroom, and outdoor outhouse. And what would happen every day as we would use it, and a vietnamese man would come over and he would learn all of the feces. So, if you had an office next to there, like me, it was a terrible place to be. [laughter] this other side, theres another building and that is the mens showers. How this works is, i would walk around in this sidewalk, say hi to whoever was in the shower that morning, and then come down this way and go to my office over here. Shaving,body would be it was just from the waist up, but everybody would be used to me because i was the only woman there at that time. And they would go, hi, donna. See you at work. This is the monsoon. This is in front of my office. Im about five foot four inches, i guess i have shrunk now and i am about 52. But in vietnam at five foot four inches, this would have covered me. It is one of the benches. So, just terrible, the monsoons. This is a poncho that we were given but none of us were dry. Thead awful things where, bunks would go floating down the aisle in the middle of the barracks because the rain was so who, and we had somebody was the Second Company commander and what happened to her all of the time was that the rain would go to the Company Commanders floor, right on her head. So she would sleep during the monsoon season with a poncho over her. Relatives. We have something that i think is really interesting. Oh, there it is a again. Ok. I dont know why i am helping problems. This is soon, and this is her father, and they were in the anomalous the same time. And then what happened was, when her father went to take her to dinner downtown, he had to go through a checkout by