Jeanette Johnson of Batavia became affiliated with Fox Valley VietNow shortly before the 1986 Chicago Vietnam Veterans Welcome Home Parade. “I wanted to get involved, but at the same time I was afraid to come out of the woodwork,” she said, because of the negative way Vietnam vets were perceived.
Johnson, a former Navy nurse, had served 14 months during 1968-69 on the island of Guam, taking care of Vietnam casualties. “I got my orders to go because of Tet,” a month-long enemy offensive that resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,000 U.S. servicemen.
“Being directly touched by the war for 14 months changed my life forever,” Johnson said. “I was 28 years old at the time, and it was awful to see these young kids coming in with hunks of flesh missing. Although I wasn’t in the thick of the war, the wounds we saw were horrendous. We patched them up, and then they were sent somewhere else, so we never were able to find out what became of them. Over the years, I’ve often wondered about those guys.”
Johnson, like other Vietnam vets, experienced a hostile climate when she returned to the U.S. in 1969. “What I experienced became something I learned not to talk about, because it turned people off,” she said. After bouts with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Johnson became involved with VietNow’s PTSD rap group. “I still attend,” she said, “though I don’t really have symptoms anymore.”
Johnson, now employed as a nurse at a nursing home, is active in several national women’s veterans groups. The Vietnam Women’s Memorial statue to be dedicated Thursday in Washington, D.C., she said, is long overdue. “The statue means a lot to those who were involved.”
