The humidity hung heavy, like a damp curtain, as 22-year-old Millie Muscatello (now Evans) climbed aboard a helicopter in July 1970. Her destination was the 17th Field Hospital in An Khe, Vietnam, and she was the pilot’s only cargo. The landing pad was empty when she arrived, and the pilot left her alone there in the dark. She sat atop her luggage, waiting for her contact to show up, terrified as flashes of light began whizzing by. “They were incoming and outgoing tracers, but I didn’t know at the time which was which,” she said. “I sat there crying silently; I didn’t want to make any noise because I didn’t want anyone to find me. Finally, a jeep arrived and took me to meet the chief nurse. I wondered, what did I get myself into?”
Evans may have felt regret on that terrifying first night, but she never doubted her call to nursing. When a group of students in her class at Mercy Hospital in Pennsylvania decided to enlist in the military, she joined them. Four of the 15 young nurses were sent to Vietnam, the reality of which turned out to be far less glamorous than it initially sounded.
“People ask me if it was anything like M*A*S*H. No! But there were a lot of good people,” she said. Evans found herself immersed in a variety of stressful situations. She worked in a unit for badly burned Vietnamese children, inwardly cringing as the babies screamed through excruciating wound care. The daily drone of Medevac helicopters always meant another round of triaging injured soldiers. “After the injured, they brought in the casualties. The body bags would start piling up,” Evans recalled, noting how the growing stack triggered tears that she refused to let anyone see. Like any good nurse, her compassion was balanced by grit. “I had a reputation for being mean,” she said, admitting that she had no problem yelling to get things done.
But Vietnam also left Evans with some good memories. She delivered a baby, went on humanitarian trips into local villages and brought toys to children at a Catholic orphanage. The nurses worked to bring a taste of home to each holiday, and Evans recalls donning Halloween masks and singing silly songs to the injured GIs.
After four months, Evans transferred to the 8th Field Hospital in Tuy Hua, and returned home in 1971. She went on to have a fulfilling career in nursing and met her husband, Bill Evans, while both worked at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Bill was a Navy Hospital Corpsman training to become a transplant technician. He would later exit the Navy and join the Army, but not before the couple married in 1976. The Evans had two daughters, Heather and Melissa, and the family moved between seven duty stations, including Texas, New Jersey, Arizona and Germany. When Bill retired in August 2000, it was at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, with 28 years of service. The couple now has six grandchildren and will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in 2026.
When they wear their veteran hats in public, people often thank Bill for his service, but fail to recognize Millie. “I always say, ‘Hey, what about her?” Bill is proud of his wife’s service in Vietnam and hopes that one day, all female veterans get the recognition they deserve.
By Kari Apted
