We have been learning about Ann (Benson) Rudolph, who graduated from St. Olaf College’s nursing program in 1964. She began a two-year Army service obligation, completing her Nursing Officer Basic Course and working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. She married in July 1965 before receiving reassignment and Vietnam deployment orders with the 93rd Evacuation Hospital (93rd Evac). The unit arrived by troopship in Vietnam on Oct. 31, 1965, and was operational in December. The main portions of the hospital consisted of four-plexes of large Quonset huts built in an X-shape with a roof over the common space where they joined.

Ann explained that the patient wards at the 93rd Evac were in these Quonset four-plexes.

“These groups of four Quonsets had an individual roof that connected the four so you could walk around the whole thing. That worked out well in a medical ward. Those medical wards had nine patient beds on each side (of each Quonset). So, that was 18, 18, 18, & 18 — that was 72 beds. So that we could observe possibly 72 patients, the nurses’ desk was in the center.”

She also described the nurses’ duty uniform.

“They were the heavy, green fatigues. While I was there they switched to the lighter-weight. We were never in Whites because it was just dirt. (After) I left they added sidewalks and overheads so you could get from one ward to the other without getting rained on. But we had none of that.”

Ann described her first duty assignment with the 93rd Evac as it began receiving patients

“Surgical came first. The surgical (patients) would go from Surgery to Recovery and then to our unit. So, I didn’t have to do anything with them until they already had surgery. One whole complex (four-plex) was just surgery. I was first in a (four-plex ward) where it was all surgical patients.”

She explained that most of the patients in the surgical ward had combat injuries and often needed emotional as well as medical support.

“You got to know the guys better as you comforted them. I never had anybody die on me in Vietnam. But you’d see things like nurses holding the guy’s hand and them saying, ‘Mother, mother!’ and her able to say, ‘I’m here’ because he was so delusional that he needed that. We had a little Vietnamese boy who was shot out of a tree by a soldier who decided he was (Viet Cong). We kind of took to him.”

Ann described how their surgical patients were re-directed after discharge from the 93rd.

Surgical (patients) wouldn’t necessarily go back to their unit. There were guys who were so bad off that we’d do the best we could with them and then ship them to Okinawa or to the States. I don’t know where they went from there. I know the bad burn cases went to Fort Sam Houston because they had the best Army burn units.”

The memory of one busy day stays with her to this day.

“I remember one time when we all had to go and triage. At first, I was working with the head of the hospital, a colonel. He assessed a (patient) and moved on. One of the younger physicians came over and said to me, ‘This guy needs a chest tube right now!” I said, ‘Well, I couldn’t say that to him (the colonel).’ (Ann laughed) Anyway, he saved the guy. That was a lot of incoming. That’s what (the patients) were called, ‘Incoming.’ We could hear the choppers coming in. To this day I react to choppers, but it’s now like 10 seconds and I can let it go.”

The 93rd later reassigned Ann to a medical ward.

“I went to another section where I became the assistant head nurse in the medical ward. That’s where we had malaria and the cases that weren’t surgical. This was kind of like a regular hospital where you go to the ER and have to be hospitalized.”

Ann experienced another patient surge while in the medical ward.

“One time choppers were bringing an onslaught of cases to a hospital north of us. They would have been overwhelmed, so they sent their medical patients to us. We were forewarned, so we had enough time for the orderlies to quickly make beds into bunks. I escorted (the patients) in and decided which bed they’d go in. The only way I could do it rapidly was to feel the back of their necks to see who had the higher temperature. The higher temperatures went below and the other guy when in the higher (bunk). There wasn’t time to get vitals on everybody, so we did the best we could.”

A doctor she knew pulled her out after she had worked hours past her normal shift.

“That was probably the longest shift I ever worked. I worked so hard that day that the doctor — we had befriended each other because he was also married. There’s a piece of you when you are married that you want to talk to married people. He came and got me, saying, ‘You’ve been here long enough. C’mon, let’s get you some food.’ So, I quickly signed off and left. If a doctor shows up, the other nurses are going to say, ‘Okay, Ann, you can go.’ (Ann laughed) It was a really nice friendship he and I had, talking about married life and people.”

Ann also enjoyed good working relationships with the enlisted orderlies and close friendships with her nurse bunkmates.

©2025 William D. Palmer.