Jim Maywald

Retired Viet Nam Vet

[A Soldier's Whisper @SoldiersWhisper]

🇺🇸 Decades after the Vietnam War, Patti Ehline attended an event where a man approached her with words she never expected:
"You were my nurse in Vietnam."

Because before surgery, when fear gripped him and the future was uncertain, Patti had leaned close and whispered:
"I’ll take good care of you."

It was the last voice he heard before losing consciousness. More than fifty years later, he still remembered every word. Patti was just 22 when she arrived in Vietnam in 1968 — the war’s deadliest year. As an Army nurse in evacuation hospitals, she faced a relentless pace: helicopters landing day and night, each arrival bringing urgent decisions that could mean life or death. There were no easy shifts, no predictable days, only constant urgency.

She worked through exhaustion, danger, and uncertainty, caring for soldiers whose lives had changed in an instant. For many, survival depended not only on medics and surgeons, but on nurses like Patti — someone willing to stand beside them in their hardest moments.

Years later, Patti became an advocate for veterans and those carrying the unseen burdens of war. Yet one encounter remained unforgettable: a man she barely remembered, who remembered her for a lifetime. Not for a medal, not for a procedure, but for a promise kept in the darkest hour — comfort, hope, and care.
#TheVietnamWar #ArmyNurses

[Johnny Cadillac @lippyent]

Truth

[LAnDo NIFFIRG™️ @llandoniffirg]

���🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[ЩΣПDӨᄂYПП  @wendeeluvz]

🤣💯☕️🤘🏼🌅

[Be Believing @Be_Believing]

Kid is blind and throws it down the pipe. Great job

[Mike Netter @nettermike]

June 8, 1968.
When Kate O’Hare-Palmer stepped off the plane in Vietnam, the first thing that hit her wasn’t gunfire. It was the heat—heavy, choking—and the smell of war. She was just 22 years old, wearing a neat summer Army Nurse Corps dress uniform that made her look impossibly young. Nearby, soldiers waiting to board the plane home lay silently on the ground with their duffel bags as pillows, eyes empty and far away.

Later, she’d learn they called that look the thousand-yard stare.
It wouldn’t be long before she had it herself.

Within hours of arrival, Kate was thrown into chaos. A Vietnamese woman was rushed into surgery with a ruptured aorta. Kate didn’t even have time to put on gloves. They fought to save her. They couldn’t.

It was the first death she saw in Vietnam. It would not be her last.

Kate came from a military family. Service was in her blood. She believed she was ready.

She wasn’t.

She was assigned to the 2nd Surgical Hospital, first at Lai Khe and later at Chu Lai—field hospitals where helicopters landed just feet away, carrying soldiers no older than boys. Head wounds. Chest wounds. Limbs gone. Some could be saved. Some could not.

And Kate was one of the nurses who had to make that call.

Triage:
Live.
Die.
Try.

Doctors said field nurses had some of the highest PTSD rates of the entire war—not because they were in combat, but because they had to play God every single day.

She worked 12-hour shifts, six days a week. When helicopters came in heavy, they worked straight through their seventh.

Then came the day they brought in a soldier with live ammunition still lodged in his body. One wrong move, and the operating room would explode.

The room cleared.

Kate stayed.

22 years old, hands steady as stone, helping the surgeon and a bomb expert remove the round piece by piece.

“I didn’t start shaking until it was over,” she said. “Then I couldn’t stop.”
But the soldier lived.

Not everything was blood and horror. Kate also went on medical missions to villages, treating children caught in the crossfire. Those moments reminded her of why she came—to heal. To help. To try.

But by week three, her faith had cracked.

“I was pretty religious,” she said. “And I just… got angry at God.”

She served 14 months.
And when she came home, her war wasn’t over.

For years, she carried the trauma alone.
Women veterans were hardly acknowledged.
Their sacrifices went unspoken, unrecognized, unseen.

In 1993, she attended the dedication of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial. Hundreds of nurses gathered—crying, laughing, realizing they had all been carrying the same invisible wounds. That moment changed her life.

Kate began to fight again—not in triage rooms, but in meeting rooms and congressional hearings.

She became an advocate for:

• Women veterans’ mental health
• Recognition of women’s combat service
• VA support and medical benefits
• Representation in memorials and history

At 79 years old, Kate O’Hare-Palmer still fights. She chairs the Vietnam Veterans of America National Women Veterans Committee. She speaks in schools and veteran halls. She makes sure the stories of the nurses of Vietnam are never forgotten.

She saved lives in operating rooms under enemy fire.
Now she saves veterans who are still fighting wars inside themselves.

She was 22 when she learned to face death and save the living.
She is 79 now, and she is still serving.

Thank you, Kate O’Hare-Palmer.
Not just for what you did then—
but for what you never stopped doing.
🫡

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@karenshane63 The Queen of Technicolor

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@EternallyJustMe North by Northwest

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

Pearls Before Swine for January 26, 2025 | https://t.co/9wRlRL4VXy https://t.co/yWDJzPLeTq via @GoComics

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@HollywoodYeste1 Maureen O'hara

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@crockpics @Creamofthe1960s So many but I'll pick Pretty Woman

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@rwelkos What a unique picture.

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@EdMcClellan11 She was an early Playboy centerfold but I can't remember her name.

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@karenshane63 She had the sexiest name in Hollywood, plus outstanding looks.

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@EpochInspired @timecaptales Lousy video

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@TCM_Party By Skippy, do you mean Asta from The Thin Man series?

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@karenshane63 Days of Wine and Roses

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@PulpArtMedia Is that Raquel?

[Jim Maywald @JimMaywald]

@HubFamous Looks like the thing to do to me.