Vietnam War

===American nurses===
[[File:Second Lieutenant Kathleen M. Sullivan treats a Vietnamese child during Operation MED CAP, a U.S. Air Force civic... - NARA - 542331.jpg|thumb|A nurse treats a Vietnamese child, 1967]]

American women served on active duty performing a variety of jobs. Early in 1963, the [[Army Nurse Corps (United States)|Army Nurse Corps]] (ANC) launched Operation Nightingale, an intensive effort to recruit nurses to serve in Vietnam.<ref name="Norman">{{Cite journal |last=Norman |first=Elizabeth M. |title=Women at War: the Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam |series=Studies in Health, Illness, and Caregiving |journal= New Jersey Nurse |publisher=University of Pennsylvania |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-8122-1317-1 |volume=22 |page=15 |jstor=j.ctt3fhsqj |pmid=1570214 |issue=2}}</ref>{{Rp|7}} [[First Lieutenant]] Sharon Lane was the only female military nurse to be killed by enemy gunfire during the war, on 8 June 1969.<ref name="Norman" />{{Rp|57}} One civilian doctor, [[Eleanor Ardel Vietti]], who was captured by Viet Cong on 30 May 1962, in [[Buôn Ma Thuột]], remains the only American woman unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vietti, Eleanor Ardel |url=http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/v/v600.htm |access-date=4 January 2018 |website=POW Network|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206161639/https://www.pownetwork.org/bios/v/v600.htm|archive-date=February 6, 2023}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Fisher |first=Binnie |date=28 October 2001 |title=The last missing woman from the Vietnam War |work=Houston Chronicle |url=https://www.chron.com/news/article/The-last-missing-woman-from-the-Vietnam-War-2043691.php |access-date=4 January 2018|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407114837/https://www.chron.com/news/article/The-last-missing-woman-from-the-Vietnam-War-2043691.php|archive-date=April 7, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Lloyd |first=Alice B. |date=29 May 2017 |title=Fact Check: Why Are So Few Women's Names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall? |work=Weekly Standard |url=http://www.weeklystandard.com/fact-check-why-are-so-few-womens-names-on-the-vietnam-memorial-wall/article/2008250 |access-date=4 January 2018|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607104216/https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/fact-check-why-are-so-few-womens-names-on-the-vietnam-memorial-wall|archive-date=June 7, 2022}}</ref>

Although a small number of women were assigned to combat zones, they were never allowed directly in the field of battle. Unlike the men, the women who served in the military were solely volunteers. They faced a plethora of challenges, one of which was the relatively small number of female soldiers. Living in a male-dominated environment created tensions between the sexes. By 1973, approximately 7,500 women had served in Vietnam in the Southeast Asian theater.<ref>{{Harvnb|Holm|1992|p=206}}.</ref> American women serving in Vietnam were subject to societal stereotypes. To address this problem, the ANC released advertisements portraying women in the ANC as "proper, professional and well protected." This effort to highlight the positive aspects of a nursing career reflected the feminism of the 1960s–1970s in the United States. Although female military nurses lived in a heavily male environment, very few cases of sexual harassment were ever reported.<ref name=Norman/>{{Rp|71}}