“We Were Kennedy Kids And Wanted To Do Something”: A Donut Dollie Deploys To Vietnam In A Pale Blue Dress

Susan McLean was born in 1948 and grew up in Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. Her father worked for Amaco Gas, but he was a medic stationed at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked, and he helped “pick up bodies.” Her mother was a homemaker. Susan grew up with a brother who was three years older and a sister who was nine years younger. Her brother commissioned through ROTC and was stationed in Germany when Susan deployed to Vietnam. After high school Susan earned a degree in Elementary Education from Longwood College, a girls’ school in Virginia, before being called to do something else. Susan once visited East Germany, and observed, “Once you’ve been to a Communist country…” Thae experience motivated her to want to do something. She related a story of her time in East Berlin. After arriving, she went to a bar, and she had brought several Kennedy half-dollars with her. She laid a half-dollar on the bar, and the bar tender, who was wiping down the bar, looked around, and after making sure no one was watching, he picked up the coin, kissed it and put it in his pocket, saying “God Bless you” to Susan. Before volunteering for the Red Cross, Susan had thought about Vietnam, noting “I didn’t look at the political, I looked at the Soldiers and felt sorry for them.” Her boyfriend at the time suggested she become a Donut Dollie. After cursory two-week “training,” where she “learned to talk Army” and got shots at the Pentagon, she deployed to Vietnam. She remembers that her duties were very vague, and she did not know a lot of specifics about the job she had signed up for. She recalls the shock she felt when the airplane door opened and the smell and heat hit her. She vividly remembers thinking, “I should have listened to mother.” She was only homesick once, and it was while attending a Bob Hope Show in 1970 at Phu Bai. She was sitting next to South Vietnamese Vice President Ky when he mentioned that he knew of Longwood College, which unexpectedly made her cry. After landing in Saigon, she was assigned to An Khe, and recalls “developing programs” and games for the Soldiers. Her mandate was to “give them a chance to think about something other than the war,” give them a hot meal, deliver mail, or give them sundry bags (“ditty bags”). She spent time in An Khe with the 4th Division, Da Nang, Quang Tri, Phu Cat, and Quy Nhon. At Phu Cat, she inadvertently broke up a drug ring and had to “go into hiding” because the drug-dealing Soldiers wanted to kill her. They had been bringing heroin in in Mermite containers, and Susan insisted on helping serve the meal. Her daily routine consisted of trying to catch a ride on a truck or helicopter after breakfast to visit different units at remote fire bases. Frequently she visited four remote sites per day. Sometimes she was on hospital duty, and she played games and wrote letters for the wounded Soldiers. She recalls planning parties for the troops. While the Soldiers she interacted with were wearing fatigues, boots, and helmets, she went to war in the “ugliest blue dress you can imagine,” with blue tennis shoes or black flats. Occasionally she wore blue culottes. At An Khe she received a gas mask. She enjoyed supporting the Charlie Rangers and Kilo Rangers (C Company, 75th and K Company 75th) because they took care of her. She remembers taking incoming artillery rounds and diving into bunkers. Once, during incoming, she was leading the way into a bunker and stopped dead in her tracks. Everyone behind her was pushing to get in, but she spotted a momma cobra and her babies in the bunker. That bunker was burned. Once she had to remain at Khe Sanh for an emergency overnight when it was too dangerous for the helicopter to leave. She remembers Khe Sanh as “the closest thing to hell I ever experienced.” Her fondest memories are of the “wonderful guys” she supported. The Dollies carried claymore bags as purses, and “her guys” gave her unit pins to decorate her bag. She describes having to use the bathroom in the field, where there were no bathrooms for women. She loved the spaghetti C-Rations, hated the rats, and experienced a typhoon at An Khe. She describes always having moldy clothes, never having enough toilet paper, and the struggles of taking showers. Donut Dollies always had to travel in “Battle Buddy” teams and there were six stationed at An Khe. During the war, 627 women served as Donut Dollies and four died in Vietnam. After her tour was done (August 3, 1970, to August 3, 1971) she spent two weeks in Japan. When she returned to Travis Air Force Base, she and another Dollie were in a hotel together and they took turns “taking baths and talking on the phone.” When she returned to Asheville, she found it “really hard to come home.” People told her “you’re weird” and “your mind is in Vietnam.” She suffered with sensory overload and none of her friends wanted to talk about what she had experienced. She recalls, “I had nobody to talk to.” She admits, “I picked up a lot of bad habits in Vietnam,” including drinking out of a pan (it was all they had) and “drinking liquor straight.” After returning to the States, she taught and worked as a Police Dispatcher, and for 19 years she “forgot Vietnam.” She enjoys attending reunions, but remembers “my last day of my first reunion I cracked.” When that happened, she was glad someone was there for her. She returned to Vietnam with Veterans of the 101st and called it REM therapy. She did not think about her service in Vietnam until she started attending reunions. Reunions are “the only place I feel I’m understood.” As she reflects on her service, she is “thrilled to have the opportunity” to serve America’s military as a Donut Dollie.