CPT Bernice Lorraine Whiteside Oral History

title:

CPT Bernice Lorraine Whiteside Oral History

creator:

Whiteside, Bernice Lorraine (Mitchell) (1943 December 11 - )

subject:

Army Nurse Corps

description:

Bernice L. Whiteside (formerly Mitchell) was born on December 11, 1943 in Newport News, Virginia. She moved to Greensboro, North Carolina when she was twelve, and graduated from Dudley High School in May 1962. When she was younger she wanted to be an airline steward, and her grandmother encouraged her to go into nursing. Right after high school, she attended North Carolina A&T and began the Army Student Nursing Program there in 1964, completing it upon her graduation in 1966 and passing her exams to officially start with the Army Nurse Corps in August. She went to basic training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and requested to be stationed at Walter Reed Medical Center since her sister was living in Washington, DC at the time. She started in medical but was moved into plastic surgery, where much of her work was in completing skin grafts. She was not interested in going to Vietnam, but received orders to go anyways. They did not prepare the nurses with any extra training to mentally or physically prepare at all, and with such a short turnaround she did not have time to tell people goodbye. She shipped off to Vietnam and landed at the Than Son Hut Air Force Base before being driven to the 3rd Field Hospital, which she was told was a good assignment and called the Walter Reed of Vietnam. There, she was the head nurse of the tropical medicine ward, treating men with various tropical diseases. Arter TET, there was a day she went to downtown Saigon to go to a party. While she was waiting to be picked up, armed men came by and went into the building, and they began receiving fire. She immediately reported to the hospital and told the people on her floor who could move to go down, then began working in triage. She coped throughout the ordeal by staying in constant motion, not stopping for too long, and put off thinking about it afterwards too. She was medically discharged in 1969 after getting a terrible fever after 11 months working with malaria and not taking malaria pills, although she never tested positive for malaria. Upon returning to the States, she married a friend who had also served in a Vietnam after a year. They had a child together in 1971, and although the marriage didn’t last, they remained friends. She also earned a master’s degree in mental health at the University of the District of Columbia and worked as a school nurse. She went back into military nursing in 1978 and worked as the head nurse of the Family Practice Residency Training Program at Fort Benning, Georgia. She left the service in August 1981 having reached the rank of captain, and for her service she was awarded an Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal with a star, Vietnam Service Medal, and Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate M.

date:

2004-03-11

type:

Audio

format:

CD

identifier:

993; 2004.993

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

000876

coverage:

Vietnam War (1964-1975) | 1966-69 | 1978-81

rights:

Unrestricted