10 Nov Welcome home, Donna Rowe
Captain Donna Rowe with her Vietnam scrapbook, showing photographs of baby Kathleen.
Donna Rowe was guest speaker at my neighborhood Women’s Club luncheon. We have a wonderful history-loving group of ladies, and we asked Donna for a tribute to veterans. She delivered eloquently and gave us a meaningful tribute to all veterans, especially to those who served with her in Vietnam.
Captain Rowe was assigned to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon as head nurse of the emergency room/triage area. It was the largest triage trauma unit in the country.
In 2011, I visited the permanent display of the Vietnam War at the Smithsonian American History Museum. I couldn’t believe it. Donna Rowe was featured in a film clip. Donna and I both worked for the same real estate company, Coldwell Banker in Atlanta, and I had known her for years.
Donna explained that the film is part of a documentary titled In the Shadow of the Blade. One of the icons of the Vietnam War is the Huey helicopter. Whenever she heard the sound of those blades she knew that a plane full of wounded men was headed her way. Once they got to her unit, she and her team had to assess their injuries and send them on to the correct hospital unit. “While I was in charge, I never lost a patient.” Her job was to keep them alive until they could get the help they needed.
One day, she received word from the pilot of a Huey that he had a wounded baby girl on board. She was the only survivor of a village massacre. Even though it was outside regulations to accept a civilian casualty, Donna told the pilot to bring the baby in.
The Catholic chaplain baptized the four-month-old child so that, if she did survive, she would be taken in by the Catholic orphanage. Father Sullivan took water from a nearby drinking fountain and said he needed a name. Donna suggested the name Kathleen from the Irish song, “I’ll take you home again, Kathleen.”
The documentary I watched at the Smithsonian was all about Baby Kathleen. She survived and was released to the care of the nuns. A Navy lieutenant adopted her and took her home to America. In 2003, Kathleen found her own story on the internet, and thirty-four years later, she and Donna were able to have a reunion.
You can order a copy of the entire documentary at the In the Shadow of the Blade official website. The Huey helicopter in the film is on display next to the “Donna Rowe Story” video.
58,000 Americans lost their lives in the Vietnam War, Donna explained. The soldiers who served were the best educated of any military our country had ever sent to war. The women who served in Vietnam were all volunteers, and there were 265,000 in all. There are eight army nurses honored on The Wall, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
“We were raised by the greatest generation. Our parents raised us with the love of God and with dedication to our country. We took those values with us when we went to war.”
Captain Rowe reminded us that when the Vietnam War veterans came home they were not welcomed by the media nor by many citizens of our country. Today, when a Vietnam veteran meets another, they remember what it had been like and greet each other with a “Welcome Home.”
Welcome home, Donna Rowe.
The photo I took in 2011 as I watched Donna’s video at the American History Museum.
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