When Anna Kalmbacher of Michigan found the May 25 story “Once cared for, Vietnam vet finds a way to show he cares,” she thought of her mother-in-law, a U.S. Army nurse who also served in Vietnam.
Carol Kalmbacher, the former Army nurse, clicked the link expecting to read about an experience similar to hers.
“What a shock to find out it was about my friend and ‘hooch-mate’ Cappy,” she wrote in an email to the Star. “And yes, I cried!”
Carol, then Lt. Carol Erickson, served with 1st Lt. Frances Cappadocia at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in the Pleiku area during the Vietnam War. She has worked in Indonesia since 1973, doing literacy and medical community development work with her husband.
Carol wrote to Cappadocia and her partner Sue Pennington, reminiscing about their shared time in Vietnam. Here is a portion of that note:
“ I will never forget our year there. I remember sitting on the floor after being under our beds during incoming rounds, and waiting for the all clear. Sometimes we sat outside the hooch leaning on the sandbags watching flares.
"I remember getting all the patients who could move under beds with incoming rockets and young soldiers saying, ‘There is room under my bed, nurse!’. Remind Cappy of the spaghetti meals we made in a coffee pot and popcorn popper.
"I still cannot watch war movies and cry very easily when I read or hear about veterans being honored. When we got back to the states we were shunned and the young men we still took care of were looked down on for having been in Vietnam. Can she remember when we painted pink polka-dots on our sandbags around the hooch to make it more feminine? We got reprimanded for defacing government property. … Oh Cappy, it was so good to hear about you.”
