Minnesota's Women Vietnam Veterans Oral History Project: Interview with Donna-Marie "D.M." Boulay

Titles: Minnesota's Women Vietnam Veterans Oral History Project: Interview with Donna-Marie "D.M." Boulay (Supplied title)

Description: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Donna-Marie "D.M." Boulay was born in Massachusetts and studied nursing at St. Vincent College. She went on to Boston College to obtain her nursing degree. She served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in Vietnam and ended her service with the rank of Captain. Upon return to the United States, she became actively involved with several memorial projects. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Childhood; family; education; attending a Catholic nursing school; being one of the first females to attend Boston College; race and gender issues; discrimination; the Civil Rights Movement; activism; politics; deciding to join the Army Nurse Corps; basic training at Fort Sam Houston; family reaction to enlistment; racial diversity at Fort Sam Houston; working in the ICU at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco; orders for Vietnam; working at an evacuation hospital in Vung Tau in Vietnam; initial impressions of Vietnam; experiencing extreme climatic heat and witnessing poverty; Vietnamese food and culture; remembering individual patients; dealing with severe wounds; working with corpsmen; becoming a head nurse; relationship with male colleagues; meeting her husband; horrific experiences during the Tet Offensive; dealing with the stresses of being in a war zone; morale of colleagues and patients; anti-war sentiment from nurses; contact with Vietnamese people; leaving Vietnam soon after the Tet Offensive; homecoming; personal changes after experiences in Vietnam; involvement in Veterans Against the War; the anti-war movement; becoming actively involved in memorial projects; lobbying; what it means to be an American.

Dates

• 06/10/2005 (Creation)

Creation

• interviewer: Heikkila, Kim
• interviewee: Boulay, Donna-Marie

Identifiers

• Library Call Number: OH 113
• Accession Number: AV2007.38.2

Holding Type: Oral History - Interview

Project

• Oral History - Project, MHS Collection, project: 'Minnesota's Women Vietnam Veterans Oral History Project' <OH 113>

Quantity: 4 hours sound cassette 68 pages transcript

Format

• Content Category: sound recordings
• Content Category: text

Measurements

• 240 minutes length

Subjects

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