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Former Vietnam nurse Diane Carlson Evans will be honored this Memorial Day

The National Memorial Day Concert will pay tribute to the more than 265,000 nurses who served during Vietnam, including Diane Carlson Evans who advocated for women to have a place of honor in Washington D.C.

By Sharon Knolle

The National Memorial Day Concert, airing on PBS,  will pay tribute to  among its other honorees, the nurses who served in Vietnam. Former Army nurse Diane Carlson Evans, without whom we wouldn’t have the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, spoke to us about why she fought for 10 years for a memorial honoring the women who served alongside the male soldiers in Vietnam.

Like other Vietnam War veterans, Diane Carlson Evans did not talk about her experiences after serving from 1968 to 1969: “Many of us hid our experience and decided it was too painful to talk about.”

When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in 1982, Carlson Evans, who lives in Montana, made the journey to D.C. to see the memorial in person. She looked for the name of one of her patients and the name of Sharon Lane, a nurse who was killed in Vietnam in June of 1969.

“I found their names and it was a turning point for me personally, because I now began to identify myself as a Vietnam veteran,” she says. “Very few people knew I had been there because I didn’t tell them.”

In 1984, a second statue was added next to Maya Lin’s memorial, “The Three Soldiers,” which shows three men in uniform looking at the names on the memorial wall.

Diane Carlson Evans shares, “It was that statue that started me thinking that we don’t see women who served during wartime. We don’t read many stories about them, there haven’t been many images of them, we’re not much in the history books or movies. I thought to myself, ‘If there’s going to be a statue that looks like men, there needs to be one that looks like women. If they belong there, we belong there. We went to Vietnam to help bring them home. That was our job as nurses.”

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She found a sculptor to make a prototype and, with a group of likeminded allies, presented it to the Commision of Fine Arts in D.C. “They flat out rejected the idea,” she says, recalling her shock that they would not want to honor the women who cared for and comforted the soldiers.

“Women didn’t have to go. We were volunteers,” Diane Carlson Evans points out. “Women have never been conscripted into the armed forces. We signed up. We still do. Back then, they weren’t sending women into combat, but they sent nurses into combat. Nurses have died in all of our wars. That was part of my proposal, these were women who signed up and put themselves in peril to help our fellow soldiers, who were, at the time, all men.”

The reaction from the all-male panel?

A statue honoring women was “unnecessary” and its addition would “demolish” the integrity of the existing memorials. The commission’s chairman went so far as to say that if they decided to allow women to have a statue at the memorial, they
would have to allow the K9 corps to have theirs as well. “He just put us in the same category as dogs,” says Carlson Evans, who still shakes her head in disbelief.

“Maya Lin’s design was complete,” she says of the Wall. “It included the eight female nurses who died. She didn’t forget them. The statue of the three men, I felt, made the memorial incomplete, because once again the women were invisible.” Despite the rejection, she persisted. She recruited women from all 50 states to send letters to the commissioners and the federal agencies who could greenlight the memorial. They eventually got Congress, which supersedes the Commission of Fine Arts, to pass two bills to approve the site. “Then we had to fight for the design,” she says.

The first statue concept was rejected, so the nonprofit project behind the women’s memorial held a design competition. “That’s how we found Glenna Goodacre in New Mexico, a woman who captured the essence of our service,” she says.

RELATED: How stars honored American heroes and fallen soldiers at the National Memorial Day Concert

When she returned to present the new design, it was with the backing of fellow veterans’ groups, including the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Veterans of America, and the Military Purple Hearts: “I had gone to every single convention and implored them for their support and they got behind us. Tens of thousands of the male veterans got behind us.”

On November 11, 1993, the memorial was finally dedicated. It portrays three women caring for an injured male soldier, one cradling him in an homage to Michaelangelo’s Pietà.

“It took 10 years,” Carlson Evans says. “You know what they say about women having to work longer and harder to prove ourselves.”

Her book, “Healing Wounds,” was released last year on Memorial Day. “I went to Vietnam to heal the wounds of war,” she says, adding, “that healing continues until we pass on to the other side. I do it on an everyday basis.”

While serving in Vietnam, she was aware that her life could end at any moment.

“I knew I wasn’t bulletproof. Our hospital was rocketed and mortared frequently,” she says. “Once you’re in that warzone and you’re doing your job, you just forget about yourself. The patients come first. You do whatever it takes to protect them. That was our mission. When there was incoming, we grabbed our helmets and our flak jackets and we got to work. We threw mattresses on top of patients who couldn’t get under the beds on their own. When we saw that all our patients were taken care of, then we would go for cover.

She laughs, “This idea that women can’t be in combat because they’re a bunch of ‘shrinking violets’ and the men will have to take care of them and won’t get anything done? No. In Vietnam, no man was taking care of us. We were there taking care of the men. We were there to bring them home alive. It wasn’t the other way around.”

Actress Kathy Baker will tell the incredible story of Diane Carlson Evans at the National Memorial Day Concert, which airs on PBS Sunday, May 30th, at 8:00 P.M. ET.


Gary Sinise on taking a break from Hollywood and advocating for U.S. Troops

On Monday we pause to honor the selfless men and women who fight to keep the United States safe, but Gary Sinise doesn’t just honor the U.S. Armed Forces on Veterans Day, he’s been celebrating them for decades. 25 years ago the actor played the iconic role of Lt. Dan Taylor — a platoon leader who loses his legs in the Vietnam War and struggles with alcoholism and mental illness in the Oscar- winning film Forrest Gump. Since then the actor has dedicated his life to serving U.S. military veterans and their families.

By: Heather Newgen | Twitter: @hnvoluntourist

In an exclusive sit down interview with The Voluntourist, Gary Sinise talks about his passion for helping veterans, his Lt. Dan Band and how Forrest Gump was not only a career changer, but sparked his commitment to supporting the Armed Forces.

Gary Sinise WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 27: Co-host Gary Sinise and Silver Star recipient Leigh Ann Hester pose for photo during the finale of the 2018 National Memorial Day Concert at U.S. Capitol, West Lawn on May 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Capital Concerts)

The Voluntourist: You’ve hosted the National Memorial Day Concert  for thirteen years now. Why is the event important for you to be a part of?

Gary Sinise: 2005 was my first year. I was doing USO tours and I had been on several handshake tours, that is when I just go out and shake hands, take pictures, and visit with the troops. Then I started taking the band and we’ve done some tours to Asia and around the States. I was doing quite a bit and Joe Mantegna, my buddy, knew about that and he was involved with the concert a few years before that. He invited me to come do a segment on the USO. They were planning to highlight the USO in one of their segments and so he said “come and play and you will be a part of that segment”. We brought the band here and the band was very early. We started playing our first things in 2003, but we really ramped it up in 2004. Next thing you know, we are overseas and on a USO tour to Europe. It was our first tour to Germany, Belgium, the UK, and the Netherlands. Then we had arranged to come straight here to be a part of the National Memorial Day Concert. It’s a huge crowd and it’s televised and we were very early in our evolution there. Being up on stage with all those people and everything was really something special. They also asked me, as long as I was coming, to narrate some segments throughout the show. So, I played and then I went on and I narrated things and got off and talked and was a part of the show as an actor. The following year, Joe and Jerry Colbert, who were producing, asked me to come back and co-host.

Gary Sinise WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 29: Actors and co-hosts Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna onstage at the 27th National Memorial Day Concert on May 29, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Capitol Concerts)

RELATED: Vietnam Veterans Brad Kennedy and Ernest “Pete” Peterson: “We are all blood brothers”

The Voluntourist: You and Joe go way back. You’ve been friends since Chicago Theatre days, right?

Gary Sinise: We were acquaintances then. We became friends, real serious buddies, after we started working together. We were acquaintances, we knew each other from the Chicago stuff, we did a movie together back in the late 90s. It was the National Memorial Day Concert and my coming and spending time that kind of galvanized our relationship and really began to solidify. Joe is a big military supporter and I’m out there doing things, so I asked him to become an ambassador for my foundation, which he did.  So he will do events with us and things like that whenever he can support. He’s been on “Criminal Minds” for a long time, so during the shooting season his time is limited.  We have done various things together. This is our big weekend that we spend together every year.

RELATED: How Sergeant Ray Lambert is Honoring his Fellow Soldiers 75 Years after D-Day

The Voluntourist: You’ve done so many great TV shows and movies, but the last few years you haven’t been acting as much. Is that so you can focus more on your foundation and your work for the military?

Gary Sinise: It is a blessing to be able to say that because I’ve had some success on television, and if I hadn’t had that, the pressure would be on a lot more to go out there and continue pounding the pavement as an actor. I had a successful television series and then another couple years on “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.” Both “CSI: New York” and “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders” put me in this place where I am financially secure and I can devote some of those resources to building this service mission, which is something I am very devoted to. I have a lot of veterans in my family. I’ve been around our wounded veterans for many years going back to the “Forrest Gump” days. I’ve supported Vietnam vets going back in the 80s. I’ve got Vietnam veterans in my family and in WWII, and on and on and on. After September 11th, I felt called to a mission of service and, shortly after that, I was handed this television series that gave me all kinds of resources that I could devote to this mission. So now, “Criminal Minds” went off the air in December 2016. Much like in between “CSI: New York” and “Criminal Minds” when I had two and a half years, I just devoted all that time to the foundation and my military service mission. That’s what I’m doing, traveling all around, trying to raise money and raise awareness, and trying to keep spirits up.

The Voluntourist: A lot of people in your position would not necessarily dedicate them to the activism, so why is that so important for you?

Gary Sinise: I’ve just met extraordinary people over the years who have inspired me and motivated me and taught me. I’ve learned so much from a lot of different people and I saw on that terrible day, that we all faced as a nation, our country kind of come together in response to that. Part of that was young men and women signing up to deploy to the war zone of Iraq and Afghanistan and they started getting hurt, they started getting killed. Having Vietnam veterans in my family and remembering what it was like for them to deploy to a war zone and come home to a nation that didn’t treat them very well and turn its back on them. It troubled me to think that we would face this terrible attack on our country, and we would be going into the 21st century war on terror and our defenders would not be taken care of. I wanted them to know that I supported them, so I just started going everywhere I could to make sure that they knew that. I started to raise my hand to support many military charities out there that are trying to help in many different ways, and getting involved in events that were raising awareness, much like the National Memorial Day Concert, which is a fantastic form to highlight and spotlight the sacrifices of our defenders. I just started doing that so much that it became clear that I should start my own foundation and over the years as that has all accumulated. It is clear that I feel somewhat called to this mission and that the resources that I’ve been given, the blessings I’ve been given of this nice career that I’ve had and the financial security that that’s provided me. There is a reason for it, beyond just spending it on myself and taking care of my family of course, which is a priority. But I’ve got plenty to do that and I’ve been able to devote a lot of those resources to creating a foundation. I’ve been able to go places where most Americans never would get to go, to the war zones and different places like that and see our military in action, so that I can come back and talk as an educated person about what they do and why we should support them. Having done that so much, it feels like that’s where my life is right now, and I need to continue to serve in some way. It doesn’t mean that I won’t act again. Right now, I’ve been blessed with a lot of good fortune and it is nice to be able to do something positive with it.

The Voluntourist: I know that the band is named after your character in Forrest Gump, but where did that idea come from?

Gary Sinise: When I started visiting our troops after September 11th in the war zones through the USO, this was prior to CSI: New York. I had done a fair number of films, but I was still kind of one of those faces that you recognize, and you’ve seen in movies before, but you are not sure what the name is. When folks would recognize me in the war zones and places like that, they would recognize me as Lt. Dan and would see that face. “Lt. Dan you’ve got legs” and start making jokes. I thought when I got the band going, I don’t want to see “Gary Sinise’s Band”. Well, who is Gary Sinise? I thought if I put Lt. Dan Band in there, they would kind of put it together. When I put Gary Sinise and Lt. Dan Band, they would kind of put two and two together and figure out “oh, it’s the real Lt. Dan who is coming to play for us.” Now, we play hundreds of shows for the men and women who serve our country, and our first responders. We play hospitals and on and on. We are well known within the military community for sure, because we have played on dozens of dozens of bases all around the world. I meet people who have seen us five times on different military bases. Now they know who Gary Sinise is and my television series was on for eleven years, so we don’t have the same issue with people wondering who that is. I think early on, it made real good sense and the other reason is that that character represents something positive to our military folks. The story of Lt. Dan is really a great story, it is a resilient story, a story that had not been told about our Vietnam veterans up until that point. This is 1994 when the movie came out. Prior to that, there were Vietnam movies that had come out, but all the Vietnam veterans that were being portrayed in those movies were going through a lot of serious depression and things were not going well. At the end of the film, you would always wonder if those guys were going to be okay. At the end of Forrest Gump, you know Lt. Dan is okay. That is what we want. We want our soldiers to come home from war and move on with their lives and be successful and have businesses and do alright. We’ve never seen that story before of a Vietnam veteran. It’s a resilient story, it’s a positive story, and that’s the story they [troops] want. If they get out the service, they want to know there is life after their service, and there is a good life ahead and that’s one of the nice things I like about the story; that he is okay in the end.

The Voluntourist: When did you realize he was going to be such a huge positive impact on the community?

Gary Sinise: The movie was so popular in 1994 and that changed a lot of things for me as an actor. I hadn’t done that many movies prior to Forrest Gump. I’d only done a few, so nobody knew who I was at that point. But I got a call from the Disabled American Veterans organization, the DAV, about four weeks after the movie came out. The DAV have 1.5 million disabled veterans that are a part of that organization and, at that time, they were going all the way back to WWII. These are wounded guys and gals who were banged up in service and they were a part of the DAV organization. I didn’t know anything about them, but they’ve been around for ninety years or something like that. They contacted me and invited me to come to their national convention. They wanted to give me an award for playing Lt. Dan. I walked out on stage and there were 2,000 wounded veterans in the audience, and they were all clapping and applauding and everything. I realized at that time, this character represents something really positive to them. That’s why they have asked me to come to their national convention. They gave me their National Commanders Award for playing an injured veteran in a positive way and bringing the wounded veteran back into the consciousness of the American people. When you think about that, why should we have to bring the wounded veteran back into the consciousness of the American people? They aren’t always at the forefront of our thinking. They serve, they get banged up, and they disappear. Lt. Dan sort of brought them back. In some way they felt that Lt. Dan and the positive story was bringing that wounded soldier, their stories, to life in a positive way. I realized that for our veteran community, at that time, this character was bigger than just a movie part I was playing. This was their story and it has been that way ever since.


Vietnam Veterans Brad Kennedy and Ernest “Pete” Peterson: “We’re All Blood Brothers”

After an unexpected contentious return home from the Vietnam War 50 years ago, Brad Kennedy and Ernest “Pete” Peterson finally get the welcoming home they deserve at the 30 Anniversary of the PBS National Memorial Day Concert. Although the spotlight was on their longstanding friendship and heroic sacrifices, the Vietnam veterans used the opportunity to spread several key messages such as, “We can not let the memory of these guys who died and served be forgotten.”

By: Heather Newgen  @hnvoluntourist

It’s just two hours until show time and Kennedy and Peterson, who were both honored, eagerly awaited in the lobby of a busy Washington D.C hotel stylishly dressed anticipating sharing their story. As we enter a private room to chat, Kennedy jokes, “When I met Joe Mantegna he gives me a big embrace and I whispered in his ear, “Joe, I don’t want you to take this personally, but I really had requested Dennis Haysbert to portray me” [at the PBS National Memorial Day Concert] He sort of pushed me away a little bit, smiled and said, “We drew straws and you lost,” Mantegna teased back.

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 26: Acclaimed actor Dennis Haysbert (L) and Tony Award-winner Joe Mantegna (R) onstage at the 2019 National Memorial Day Concert at U.S. Capitol, West Lawn on May 26, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Capital Concerts Inc.)

It’s easy to see why the men are friends. They’re both funny, highly intelligent, articulate, easy going, but understandably emotional and serious when talking about their time in Vietnam. While serving together in the 11th U.S. Cavalry, an unshakable bond developed that deeply connects them and other Vietnam veterans together for life.

“Sometimes we were covered in blood and sometimes it was blood of our fellow soldiers. In other cases it was a Viet Cong blood mixing in with our blood. So we’re all blood brothers in a very real sense and we’ll never let that go,” Kennedy explained to The Voluntourist.

The two joined the military for different reasons, but came out with the same perspective, “the people who created this [war] realized they made a major mistake,” Peterson stated.

“Like a lot of blacks in the south we come from a tradition of military families because the army was a way out. Normally what would happen was you’d finish high school and you’d go into the service. If there wasn’t a war going on, you’d come out and then go to college. That’s how you got your tuition money. Unfortunately, Vietnam came along and wiped a lot of us out,” Peterson said.

He added, “Brad was the sharpest guy in the battalion. Brad had been to Drew University and he didn’t have to be out there with the enlisted guys. Brad could have been an officer, but he chose to come out there to be in the field and be an enlisted man.”

The admiration is mutual.

“I’m so glad to be doing this with him because he has wisdom and he always has. I was very happy to be associated with him then and serve with him and to have been reunited again after so many years. We have far more to unite us than what divides us,” Kennedy gushed about his friend.

When coming back from Vietnam, there were no parades in their honor, parties and or any sort of appreciation. Instead the troops were met with ridicule and anger.

“Upon 50 years reflection I’ve reduced what the American people need to hear about the Vietnam War to three things:

The first, they accept and recognize that when we went over there, we thought we were right.

The second thing is you can’t confuse the man with the mission, the soldier with the policy.

And lastly, whatever we did, for better or for worse, was done in the name of the American people and all Americans, even those who weren’t born at the time, share a responsibility for it. It doesn’t just fall on our shoulders. Until Americans make clear to Vietnam veterans they accept that responsibility there will never be harmony or peace in our minds.”

“We returned from Vietnam, nobody wanted to know what we had been through, and there’s a scene [in the PBS trailer] where it shows us as young guys over there in the jungle trying to take care of one another. Then there’s another scene where it shows us today–us old guys coming up from the wall and when I look at that I think, “Damn we’re still taking care of each other.” That meant a lot to me,” Peterson said.

A hostile return home wasn’t all Vietnam veterans encountered. Thousands faced serious health issues that couldn’t be explained.

“My biggest problem wasn’t that I was rejected. So many of us were coming home. We could take care of each other. Our problem was we didn’t want to admit there was something wrong with us. We lied to ourselves, we drank, we did anything except for admit there was something wrong with us. For those who went to the VA to see what was wrong they didn’t know. They played the game and said, “y’all got agent orange,” Peterson revealed.

Vietnam veterans also dealt with personal struggles.

“I had a busted marriage, I drank, everything you do to try to medicate yourself rather than saying to yourself something ain’t right up here. You work your way through it and that’s how we cope. We helped each other. Us young kids–we were just boys. We weren’t men, but when you see guys helping each other [in war] and then you fast forward 50 years and see some of these same guys pushing their brothers in wheelchairs, to me that speaks volumes about what we did for one another. We didn’t wait for the country. We realized they couldn’t really help us because they had to admit they screwed this up. Having said that, I’m still pro military. I still believe in the United States because for me as a black man, the military has already been the forefront of social changes in this country.”

The Vietnam veterans were separated for a decades after the war, but they reunited a five years ago and get together every year.

“We see each other on Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day. We can not let the memory of these guys died and served be forgotten. George Santayana said that those who fail to remember or learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. The price is too steep to allow that to happen,” Kennedy said.

To see more of their story, watch the PBS National Memorial Day Concert here or watch on Demand until June 9, 2019.