Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 10, 1993 TAG: 9308100356
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DONOVAN LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
Diane Evans opened a closet door in her home one day and found a dirty diaper inside, dropped there by one of her young children.
Until that moment, Evans had never known what a flashback was. But the smell of urine from the diaper yanked the former Army nurse back to the hospital in Vietnam where that smell was everywhere, where it was always hot, and where the stream of wounded young soldiers was constant.
She was embarrassed to tell anyone about the episode. When she did call the Veterans Administration hospital for help, she wasn't sure how to answer when they asked if she was a veteran.
"I had no idea if the VA was for women," Evans said. "Men who go to war are veterans. Not women."
She came to realize that her outlook, shared by many other Americans, was wrong. And she set out to change it.
In 1983, Evans launched a campaign to erect a memorial for the 11,500 women who served in Vietnam, most of them nurses like her.
Ten years later, after overcoming initial rejection from federal officials, she is seeing her campaign pay off. Work began last month at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington on a bronze statue depicting two female nurses helping an injured soldier.
"They said there would never be an addition to the Vietnam memorial," said Evans, who attended the Vietnam Veterans of America convention last week in Norfolk. "People didn't know we were there."
She said nurses faced the same ridicule as soldiers returning from Vietnam because they patched up the men whom protesters at home were calling "baby killers."
Evans, who lives in Minnesota with her husband, Mike, said her first step was working with artists on a design. Their initial effort was rejected by the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts.
Undaunted, she lobbied Minnesota's U.S. senators for help with the project. And in 1991, she finally saw the fruits of her labor: A bill was pushed through Congress, unanimously approved and signed into law by former President Bush. A national competition was held to come up with another design.
At the groundbreaking ceremony last month, Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, praised Evans and others in the campaign for their persistent efforts to erect the monument.
Powell said the monument was nine years in the making and "20 years in the needing."
"I didn't realize how much we owed you then and how much we should have thanked you since then," Powell said. "I didn't know what nightmares you have brought home with you."
Rosemary Cox, who served in Vietnam from 1966 to 1967 as a Navy nurse, said Powell's comments brought the journey for a monument full circle.
Each female veteran at the ceremony felt as if Powell was talking directly to her, said Cox, who has worked with Evans' Vietnam Women's Memorial Project Inc. for about three years.
Evans, 46, said the efforts have resulted in more than a monument. They have brought respect to the women who have served in all American wars, all of whom were shortchanged on recognition.
Women like P. Evangeline Jamison, who served as an Army nurse in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
The 73-year-old Jamison, stationed at Fort Monroe in Hampton during the Korean War, said, "It's long past due."
Jamison, chairman of the project's fund-raising committee, said $750,000 still must be raised to cover the project's $4 million cost. As with the Wall, the adjacent Vietnam Veterans Memorial, all costs are being paid through donations.
The monument will be dedicated on Veterans Day, Nov. 11. The site is just 300 feet from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - a location that the Commission on Fine Arts had also rejected once.
Said Evans, "We wanted to be where we belonged . . . at the memorial."
For more information on the Vietnam Women's Memorial Project, call (800) 432-1780. Contributions may be sent to the project at 20001 S. St., Suite 302, Washington, D.C., 20009.
by CNB