Oregon Daily TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1991 EUGENE, OREGON VOLUME 93, ISSUE 54 Veterans look back, reflect on wartime years Former nurse still confronts her past daily By Rene DeC.air ■ A . „ ic.nte I Ct U* Whf'li K ilhv (unison was ~4. slii> (raveled halhvav around the world in scan h of fun anil parties I w anted ext itemonl. ad ven ture and travel 1 got all three." (unison said of her stuv m Vmt II.III1 '(But) it vsas an expensive trij) emotionally In 1W70, dunson spent a year In Vietnam as a first lieutenant Army nurse working in the emergent v room at the ttfith I.vat nation Hospital at I’hu Bal She was responsible for stain ll/ing wounded soldiers flown in by belli opter so lliey could he sent to a hospital in Guam or the Philippines "I culled them smoking." she said, liecatrse they were fresh off tile fields And now at age *14, (unison saiti she sometimes still feels she is paying emotionally for her stint there As time passes, however, the memories and the pain dim, she said "I don't want it to he com pletoly gone," she saiti "1 need enough (memories) to lie able to speak up anti speak out I don't want to forgot the men I feel if I would have forgotten .. Don Moore, who served in World War II, observes Veterans Day in Irani ol the Veterans of Foreign Wars building in Eugene About 100 people turned out for the ceremony on Monday as veterans around the state and nation marked the holiday them, they literally would have lost their lives for nothing " Speaking in an interview a day before Veterans Day. dun son talked frankly about her feelings about women in the military, the dull war and the media's portrayal of Vietnam she said she has not seen di rector Oliver Stone's movie on Vietnam, Horn on the Fourth a I July, because it would be too difficult to watch Movies try to educate the public about the Vietnam War, but they often fall short, she said, because they rely on only the visual and the audible To get ,i true understanding of ihr war, she said, people need It) lout h, to feel the heal itnd Ihe cold, to smell the blood, the gunpowder, exhaust and c.(N>king that were .t part of Vietnam (lunson does not like to watch tfo TV show China Unit h because it is an unrealis to portrayal of war, she said Hut she can wati h M'A'S'H liecause It deals with people's feelings during war And. she said, tier friends were a lot like the i harm ters in the show "We were just as bizarre .is they were,” she said 'Vietnam was so surrealistic, !ik.i’ taring dm a bad I .SI) trip They needed normalcy. so that normalcy took the shape of insanity." such as the time sire anil a friend got married in a mix k wedding In a har. just !d relieve some boredom Or tile limes, she said, when the nurses and do< tors would get drunk and jump off the roof into i iri ular i anvas water tanks unlv five feet deep ()r tfiev would sta\ up all night making eggnog jusl lor the fun of it She learned a lot about hie Turn to VIETNAM. Page 3 Film draws out war memories, understanding By Rene DeCa