Grace Moore arrived at the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi, Vietnam in May 1968. I just packed all that up, stuffed it in a box and put it virtually away.” “I didn’t tell anyone I was a veteran, let alone a Vietnam veteran. And so you just quit talking about it,” said Moore, 72, an Iowa native who now lives in Doylestown. “You would get to a point where you could almost see a screen go down, like they really don’t want to hear about it. So, it became a hidden part of their histories. Still, they found that most of their friends and acquaintances at home didn’t want to hear about their war experiences. Military women, who didn’t sport the short haircuts that gave away their male counterparts’ war involvement, more easily dodged the scornful insults of “babykiller!” that combat soldiers endured upon returning. Those who served Vietnam came home to bitter hostility from thousands of Americans protesting one of the nation’s most unpopular wars. Once they start talking about Vietnam, it’s hard to stop - maybe because, for years, there was no talking at all. Joanie Moscatelli served in Vietnam from August 1968 to August 1969. “Well, I was carrying this urine specimen, and this damn nurse-eater flew up at me. They were like crickets - huge, huge and they would fly at you,” said Joanie Moscatelli, who served in Cu Chi from August 1968 to August 1969. “They had these bugs they called them nurse-eaters. “It was hot, and I reached up to put the windows down, and the driver hollered: ‘Don’t put those windows down! If we have incoming, the chicken wire will protect you from shrapnel!’ We were like, ‘OK, didn’t think about that!’ ” “They put us in Army-green school buses that had chicken wire in the windows,” she said. Or the warning of lurking danger that Grace Moore got after she arrived in May 1968 at the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsor
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