Lynda is pictured second from right, lower photos.
On June 8, 1969, 1st Lieutenant Sharon Lane, a 26-year-old nurse fro Ohio, became the first (and only) US Army nurse killed in Vietnam as a direct result of enemy fire. She had been sitting on a bed in her hooch when a VC rocket exploded nearby, sending shrapnel in every direction.
A few hours after Sharon's death, the plane carrying Lynda and 350 men began its descent into South Vietnam. When the plane began "jerking wildly," luggage fell from the overhead racks. Terrified, Lynda looked out the window. She could see explosions.
"Men," said the voice of the pilot over the intercom, "we just came into a little old firefight back there and it looks like them V.C. ain't taking too kindly to us droppin' in on Tan Son Nhut. So we're gonna take a little ride on over to Long Binh and see if we can't get a more hospitable welcome. Keep your seatbelts buckled and we'll be down faster than you can say Vietnam sucks."
Lynda was slightly reassured by his casual manner and then by their smooth landing in Long Binh. "But if there had ever been any cockiness in me before this trip began, there sure wasn't any now," she wrote later. "In its place was a cold, hard realization: I could die here."
From Lynda Van Devanter: 'Why Do They Have to Die'" from Courageous Women of the Vietnam War.
Excerpts from Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam included by permission of the Buckley family.
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