Ethical Issues In Vietnam War

Many times, the nurses treated patients that had suffered from multiple traumatic injuries, it was a rare occasion to witness a patient with a single wound. A great deal of times these injuries were far worse. Due to the hostility of the war, these patients could have lost both legs, while also suffering from a head trauma. Furthermore, hospitals become quickly overcrowded as estrangement grew in the country of Vietnam, the number of causalities increased. A wartime nurse by the name of Anne N. Philiben, remembers one of the hardest times she ever wrestled with while serving in the army nurse corps. “One of the most severely injured was John. He had wounds to his face and lost one eye, one leg below the knee, the other above the knee, and one arm. He also lost some fingers on the other hand. Anne dubbed John as a ‘train wreck.’ Saying that his body was so savaged it was miraculous he survived” (Gruhzit-Hoyt,

6).
A moral dilemma arose for many Vietnam nurses.

When working in medicine, it is easy to accept the death of an elderly person, but difficult to see a young man or children murdered by war. Also, the severity was an issue for many woman’s psyches. An elderly person has lived a full life having creating friends, a career, and family. A young child has not had the opportunity to accomplish this. The patients that Vietnam nurses regularly saw were young enough that the nurses often checked to see if they were high school classmates. Most likely it seemed that these young men reminded the nurses of brothers and friends. In Vietnam, the average age of nurse was twenty-two, while the average age of men enlisted was only nineteen (Norman, 28). Connie Christensen McCall Connolly served her country as an army nurse and remembers the devastation of seeing young men killed in battle, “the people who died were people my age; the people who were injured were people my age.’ Though grateful to be alive, Connie says she went home ‘with a very angry spirit’” (Gruhzit-Hoyt,

14).
Although devastation was prominent in Vietnam, the nurses soon recognized this disheveled place as home and were conflicted about leaving. Nurses felt comfortable with those around them, comfortable with their given routine, and events about friends and family were only recognized through care packages. It seemed that the United States was a distant memory for many nurses (Norman, 24). It may seem illogical to most, but the nurses fell victim to the routine that the army, navy, or air force gave them. Furthermore, the staff at the hospital and the patients became one family, and the nurses felt a deep personal connection to every one of them that made it burdensome to leave them behind in Vietnam.