Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, Dr. Elvira Chiccarelli shared a rich history of the women who served during the war and the impact they made.
“About 265,000 women are gonna serve and about 11,000 are deployed to Vietnam at any given time,” explained Chiccarelli inside the Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce meeting room. “They're gonna be in combat zones, the war zones, stressors are right there. They're right near hostile fire. Most of them, of course, are gonna be military nurses. They're gonna be young women with less than six months of active duty.
Chiccarelli is a retired Air Force dentist who has been researching women in the military for the past year and a half. She’s created dozens of storyboards with photos and news clips about notable women and the contributions they made.
“1964, five NAVY nurses are injured when their hotel is bombed,” Chiccarelli shared, surrounded by her storyboards. “And they are gonna receive, though some of the first women to receive the Purple Heart, and when this hotel then bombed fires had started, they braved their fire, the bombs, everything that was going on, and they rescued numerous people that were staying in this bachelor quarters hotel in Saigon.”
Chiccarelli joined the military toward the end of the Vietnam War in February 1975. She had just finished dental school at New York University, where she was one of six females in the program.
“It was a sense of adventure in a way, and serving my country,” she said.
Honoring the women who have served has become a passion project for Chiccarelli. Her mother was a cadet nurse in World War II, her daughter is an Air Force Major, and countless friends have served.
She’s particularly invested in sharing the history of female service members because they paved the way for service members today.
“One of the things that people don’t realize or remember (is) none of these women were drafted,” said Chiccarelli. “They all volunteered. They volunteered to go and put themselves in danger and take care of wounded warriors, and do heroic things for the United States. That is amazing dedication.”
As Chiccarelli noted, most of the women serving in the Vietnam War were military nurses. But toward the end of the war, and the end of the 1970s, there seemed to be some progress. In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson opened promotions to women. By 1972, they were allowed to command units that included men. In 1978, the Women's Army Corps (WAC) was disbanded, and women were integrated into training and assignments.
During the presentation, Chiccarelli also highlighted the many women who were among the first to achieve the highest ranks during the era. In 1972, Commander Elizabeth Barrett was the highest-ranking naval officer in Vietnam and was the first woman to command in combat.
In the early 1970s, Major General Jeanne Holm became the first female one-star general of the Air Force and the first female two-star general in the U.S. Armed Forces. Chiccarelli says Holm was a proponent of expanding women’s roles in the military.
“Getting us to be able to stay in and make careers in the military, if we wanted to,” said Chiccarelli. “She was also really big on the women as reservists. Emergencies...she called it the Emergency Women’s Act. She wanted to get that through Congress so that we could be very big in the Air Force, Army, so that there would always be a bunch of women ready to go to war.”
Tuesday’s presentation was moving both for civilians and veterans. Like Jean Gibson, who was a flight nurse during the Vietnam War from 1969 to 1971.
“I was in San Diego and decided to join the reserves and then active duty,” said Gibson. “I didn’t know until many years later that my mother cried every day.”
Gibson recalled one time when the aircraft “shook” after getting hit by enemy fire.
“We’re very blessed we all survived,” she said.
Eight active duty women were killed during the Vietnam War, and over 15,000 were wounded. As with their male counterparts in combat, women were also exposed to Agent Orange and later on Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, Chiccarelli added.
The debate of women’s role in the military, and whether they belong in combat roles, has reemerged after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a reexamination of fitness standards last month.
After her own experience and the research she’s done, Chiccarelli scoffs at any idea that women shouldn’t be on the front lines.
“There are women who are a lot bigger and taller and stronger than men,” she said. “If they want to do the job and we train them properly and we give them the right tools, the right protection — let them do it.”
Sandra Averhart contributed to this story.
