We have been learning about Ann (Benson) Rudolph, who grew up in the Chicago area and graduated from St. Olaf College’s nursing program in 1964. She received Army financial support her senior year and began a two-year Army service obligation by completing her Officer Basic Course and working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. After marrying in July 1965 she received Vietnam deployment orders in August and reported to her new unit, the 93rd Evacuation Hospital, forming at Fort Riley. Kansas. The Army airlifted the 93rd personnel to the West Coast, where they boarded the troop transport, USNS Buckner.

Ann described their passage to Vietnam.

“We got together for some lectures; met the docs, and some of us knew how to play bridge, so we played bridge a lot. We put together a talent show and I sang with three other gals. I have no idea what other acts there were. I don’t know, other than that, how we passed time. (Ann laughed) I remember Ann Marie writing thank you letters for her wedding gifts. (Ann laughed again) We got there on Halloween. I should say (Ann chuckled) I never did throw up.”

Making port in Vietnam left an impression.

“I think it might have been Vung Tau. The husband of one of the nurses was at the port. He was assigned somewhere else in Vietnam, but knew when we were coming in, so he met her. That was pretty exciting (Ann laughed) because all of us were missing our husbands.”

The Army transported the 93rd personnel to the installation where the Army was building their hospital.

“We had to go through Saigon to get to our hospital, which was in Bien Hoa. We went in trucks, deuce and a halves, (military 2 ½ ton cargo and troop trucks) to a huge tent where most of us lived. We were near the hospital, but not where the hospital ended up. And the heat! It was a little warm in Vietnam. By then we were living in our fatigues.”

Ann described their temporary home and what they did during this non-operational period prior to completion of the hospital.

“(It was) a huge tent of heavy, canvas material and cots with our trunks at the foot of the cot. There were different tents for different people. That was for a length of time, but we were sent to other hospitals during that time. I can’t say how long we stayed at those hospitals, but at one point I was caring for patients at another hospital. I looked up when a couple people walked in. One was a chaplain. As a teenager, I belonged to Luther League in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. That chaplain was the leader of my Luther League group — Jim Hanson. I could have fainted dead away. I went up and said, ‘Jim?’ Talk about six degrees of separation and thousands of miles away from anything both of us knew! What a wonderful thing!”

Ann visited Jim once when he invited her to dinner in Long Binh.

“The only other contact I had with him was when he invited me to his compound, a building, (Ann said with emphasis) for Thanksgiving dinner. It was delightful! It had real chairs (Ann chuckled) and a real dining room. Unfortunately, I got food poisoning, (Ann laughed) Our bathroom (in the tent) was at (a distance). So, in the middle of the night I’m stumbling around, sick, to find this place, which was a canvas enclosure.”

Living in that big tent with no nearby shower facilities posed another challenge.

“When we girls were going to shower, we had to go to another area. It was too far to walk, so we’d jump on the deuce and a halves when we could and go to the shower place. We’d get there and somehow the choppers would find out that we were there. They would buzz us (Ann laughed) because there was no roof over the showers.”

Ann began her letter writing right away.

“We got free postage. I wrote my parents about (Chaplain Jim). I didn’t write them too often, but Rudy, we wrote every day, both of us. We wrote a number (on the envelope) because it wasn’t consistent how the (letters arrived).”

Ann recalled her Christmas in Vietnam.

“We were still in the hot tents. I remember my husband sending me a beautiful necklace. I think it’s a picture of two rings entwined with ‘love’ and our names on the back. It was very thoughtful.”

The nurses moved out of tents in January 1966.

“We walked in to our made bunkbeds. We didn’t have to do our own linens. We walked into an area and maybe got to choose because I know Barb, Ann Marie, Ruth, and I were all together. We were in Quonset huts.”

These were unusually large Quonset huts, built by Army Engineers and configured in groups of four, in an X, with an enclosed roof over the opening where the four Quonsets connected.

“It’s like four Quonsets and a central roof, so they’re all (connected). The whole hospital was like that. The women nurses (had) one. Med Surg would be another four-some. OR was in another four-some. One would have been a recovery room. One would have been surgical. I know the doctors had another down from us. That was the whole hospital, these groups of four Quonsets, and each had an individual roof that connected the four.”

The 93rd staff had semi-permanent housing and hospital facilities and began accepting patients.

©2025 William D. Palmer.