Writing to recover

Woman pens book about volunteer experience during Vietnam War

By HEIDI DESCH / Hungry Horse News

It was a song by the metal band Poison that would spark Nancy Moser's efforts to write about her experiences as a state-side volunteer during the Vietnam War.

In the summer of 2001, Moser and her daughter Brie were traveling in their 1988 Mazda through the desert on their way to Las Vegas. They had planned to travel to several Poison concerts, but after the shows were canceled they set out anyway. Along the way they listened to Poison tapes.

The song "Something to Believe In" came over the stereo. They heard Bret Michaels sing:

In a time I don't remember. In a war he can't forget.

Moser asked her daughter about the song, who explained it had been written about a Vietnam veteran who had lost his best friend in the war and later committed suicide on Christmas Eve.

The lyrics carried Moser back to the years of Vietnam. To her years working as a volunteer aide in an amputee ward at the Valley Forge Army Hospital in Phoenixville, Pa.

It was a time that Moser had worked hard to forget, but Brie, who was in high school at the time, thought the subject would make for a good English paper. Brie persisted until Moser told the story.

"She wanted to know about Vietnam," Moser recalled last week. "I started at the very beginning and told her my story."

After Moser had finished, Brie encouraged her to write about her experiences.

"I don't want to write about it. It hurts so much," she recalled telling Brie at the time. "She said 'Only you can tell it with the emotion it deserves."

Moser eventually relented and spent nine years writing from her home in Martin City. Her book, "Early Morning Rain," was released earlier this month. She calls the book "a creative account of a true part of (her) life." She has taken her memories of helping soldiers at the hospital and created character composites to tell the story.

IT WAS the summer of 1966 when Moser danced her way into Valley Forge. A longtime dancer, Moser joined a USO troop and toured through New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania performing.

Dancing in the USO was intended to be a way of healing. Not long before, her fiance Johnny died while serving in Vietnam.

"I was 18, when my fiance died just four months before being discharged," she recalled. "I joined to USO to dance — my instructor thought it might help."

Valley Forge Army Hospital was 15 miles from her childhood home, but Moser had never been there before. Rows of full beds lined the second floor of the narrow building in the "para and quad ward." Soldiers on the floor were all missing at least one limb; a few were left without arms or legs.

The USO girls danced and sang for the soldiers. Moser was intrigued and talked to the head nurse about coming back as a volunteer. Moser had a cosmetology degree, which qualified her to work as a nurse's aide.

"I loved to sing, dance and design sets. I thought cosmetology was a way in the back door of theater," Moser said. "I never dreamed that hair dressing school would bring me to Valley Forge Army Hospital."

MOSER SPENT the next several years working at Valley Forge. Volunteers helped feed the soldiers and write letters home, but mostly they were there to visit and listen. Sometimes Moser and other volunteers would take a few soldiers out dancing.

Many had joined the military right out of high school and were about the same age as Moser.

"Some had never had time to learn to dance," she said. "They didn't go to prom because they were afraid to ask the girl. It was an innocent time."

One of her most daunting tasks was to go to the soldiers' family homes. The soldiers didn't know it, but the head nurse would give volunteers gas money and send them to the families to request visits to the hospital.

"Some soldiers spent two years in the hospital and no one came to see them," she said. "A lot of the (families' didn't come because they didn't know what to say or do. It was very common to never have visitors. We would go out and drum up visitation — that was demoralizing when you didn't get a response."

Often returning soldiers faced ridicule from those who were against the war.

"Soldiers that came from that war, we didn't talk about them and their service," Moser said. "We have to acknowlege the sacrifice our military has made for us."

Not all of Moser's time at Valley Forge was sad. Moser remembers one weekend she and a friend took two guys into the Poconos Mountains to go camping.

Moser describes the area as much like the Canyon. They stopped at a small town on the way for beer. When folks in the area found out about Moser and her friends, they gathered together brining food and instruments for music.

"They had a welcome home party for these young men," she said. "That was a fun weekend."

ONE INCIDENT caused Moser to leave Valley Forge.

Moser befriended Munk, a lieutenant at the hospital who was an escaped prisoner of war..

Even while being held captive, Munk focused solely on making it home to his mother. She had become severely depressed with the news of his deployment to Vietnam.

When Moser visited him one day, Munk was unshaven and focused solely on his release from the hospital. Moser watched as three orderlies rushed into his room, shoving her out of the way, and tried to subdue him in a straight jacket. He screamed for help and Moser pleaded with the orderlies to stop.

"I left Valley Forge and never went back," she said. "I put it out of my mind. That part of my life was over and forgotten."

IT WASN'T until the Gulf War began in the early 1990s that Moser's experiences during the Vietnam War started flooding back. She was frightened about how the soldiers would be treated when they returned home. She wanted their after-care to be better.

"I wanted the young generation serving to be treated better than our generation was treated," she said. "When we send people into combatm we need to take care of those people better when they come home."

Moser suffered flashbacks and realized she had never dealt with her experiences at the hospital. She joined a support group to deal with her feelings.

Later, writing "Early Morning Rain" helped her continue her recovery.

"Writing is a huge healing process," she said. "You relive as you write the things that you react to in an instant. When you write you have time to think and analyze."

The book is expected in local bookstores soon. Until then, "Early Morning Rain" is available for $15 through Moser by mail at N. Moser, P.O. Box 260118, Martin City, MT 59926 or by e-mail at cosmosis217@hotmail.com.