The Lady
~Sharon Lane
NamNews, 2-08, Pages 28-30, 8 Aug 1988
The following is from the AP and was found in the San Antonio Express News on 6-25-88
SUITLAND, Md.- The Vietnam War's messengers of death are inescapable at the National
Archives.
The daily journals, the annual history of the Da Nang mortuary, the certificates of death,
the records of things left behind - a peace medal, a Bible, tape cassettes - are abundant
in the 12 million pages of Army documents recently made public.
Together, they chronicle the heavy toll paid by the 58,156 men and women who died in
Vietnam.
The Da Nang mortuary report tells of processing the remains of 5,377 Americans in 1969 and
notes that the number of casualties was generally higher in March through May of each year
because of regular North Vietnamese and Viet Cong offensives.
The second entry in the daily staff journal of the 74th Medical Battalion at Chu Lai on
June 8, 1969, brought the dreaded knock on the door back home in Canton Ohio, for Kay and
John Lane.
DETAILED REPORT
"1. 0001 Journal opened.
2. 0550 Rocket attack 312th area. Resulted in the death of a nurse.
3. 0720 SFC Bailey called SP5 Ellafrits, 312th Evac on the casualty report on the death of
1LT Sharon A. Lane, N2337551, 238-38-3327, 312th Evac, as a result of attack at 0550
hrs..."
While it was morning in Vietnam, it was the previous evening in the United States because
Saigon time is 11 hours ahead.
The Lanes heard sketchy details of the rocket attack on the evening news.
"Right after that came a knock on the door and we saw this Army car sitting in the
driveway" Kay Lane, now 64 recalled in a telephone interview.
"When he (the Army Officer) came to the door, even before my husband got there, I
asked 'Is she dead?` He said 'Yes`"
A piece of steel from a rocket that landed between Ward 4A and Ward 4B of the 312th
Evacuation Hospital had ripped through Sharon Lane's aorta.
She bled to death less than a month before her 26th birthday, the first woman killed by
hostile fire in Vietnam.
Among her last letters home, she wrote on June 4 1969, that her unit had just reached a
milestone by treating its 10,000th patient since arriving in Vietnam the previous
September.
She added: "Start 'nights' tomorrow so don't have to get up early tomorrow.
Nice thought. Still very quite around here. Haven't gotten mortared for a couple of weeks
now..."
Four days later, she was dead.
She was awarded posthumously the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Vietnamese
Gallantry Cross.
A memorial statue of the nurse stands in the courtyard of Aultman Hospital in Canton,
where she went to nursing school.
The hospital's Sharon Lane Women's Center is named in her honor.
Just the same, her mother said, Sharon would approve of none of this.
"She wasn't that kind of a person," Kay Lane said. "She just thought she
was a nobody, you know, just an ordinary person, and everybody tries to make a hero out of
her now."
My Vietnam Related Websites:
Women in
Vietnam ~ Not only nurses served . . .
Dusty's Home
Page ~ Poetry and prose by a woman who was a nurse in Vietnam
Emily's Poetry
~ By a Red Cross Donut Dolly
Battle
Dressing ~ The Journey of a Nurse in Vietnam
Tim
O'Brien's Home Page ~ National Book Award Winner and Americal Vet
Shrapnel in
the Heart ~ The most moving book you will read on Vietnam
The
Irish on the Wall ~ An effort to locate the Irish who died in Vietnam
Project Hearts
and Minds ~ Help put Viet Nam back together
All About
Vietnam ~ An annotated bibliography of books about Vietnam for sale
thru Amazon Worldwide!
Photos
from a Holts' Military History Tour ~ My trip to Vietnam, February 1998
Illinois
Vietnam Women's Memorial ~ Honoring all the Illinois women who served
My Other Websites:
Chicago
Theatre Z - A ~ This is the best theater town in the country!
Writers
Theatre of Chicago ~ And this is the best theater in town
Literature
of the Korean War ~ Don't let the literature be forgotten
Poetry
of the First World War ~ Owen, Hardy and others
Samuel
Pepys ~ One of my favorite authors
Gil
Thorp ~ THE Coach
Maybe
Later . . . ~ My Creative Nonfiction
Chi-COW-go
~ Cowz plus Commentary (this used to be a cow town)
Graham
Fulton, Scottish Poet ~ Charles Manson Auditions for the Monkees
Soccer
Literature ~ I'm a fan and I read
O'Leary Lantern ~
Fire! Fire! Fire!
Other Important Websites:
PreviewPort.com
~ Connecting Authors and Writers Worldwide
Remember
Oklahoma City ~ Civil Service and Military Employees will never forget
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