The female Korean military nursing officers, who began to be commissioned from 1948, participated in the Vietnam War in 1964, which was the first overseas deployment in the history of Korea. They served as the members of the first contingent stationed... The female Korean military nursing officers, who began to be commissioned from 1948, participated in the Vietnam War in 1964, which was the first overseas deployment in the history of Korea. They served as the members of the first contingent stationed in Vietnam to protect lives and to boost national prestige by carrying out professional nursing care with the humanitarian point of view not only for the Korean military but for the local people as well as the Viet Cong. In addition, by actively participating in the support of the people with the delicacy of women, they contributed greatly to building a friendly image of the ROK armed forces to the Vietnamese people. Such successful task performance has established a foothold for the Korean nursing officers to work as peacekeeping operations in the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the number of studies regarding the war experiences of Korean nursing officers is inadequate when compared to those of U.S. or Australia. This study was conducted with van Manen's (1990) hermeneutic phenomenological approach research method to explore the meaning and essence of the lived experience of the female nursing officers who participated in the Vietnam War. Moreover, the study intends to give a vivid description of the female nursing officers' lived experience of the Vietnam War to the nurses and the general public. Participants of this study were 14 female nursing officers who participated in the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1973, and were selected by purposive and snowball sampling. The data were collected from September to November of 2016. The participants were recruited in five different regions such as Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, Gyeonggi province to conduct in-depth face-to-face interviews and telephone interviews were implemented when needed as well until the data saturation was reached. Interviews were recorded and transcribed with permission of the study participants. In addition, 12 sources of literature such as poetry, novels, and memoirs, and 13 different works of art such as paintings, statues, and photographs were explored for the data related to the war participation of female nursing officers in the Vietnam War. The data was analyzed through hermeneutic phenomenological reflection, and eight essential themes were drawn to hermeneutic phenomenological writing. As the result of this study, total of eight essential themes were extracted from female nursing officer's lived experience of participating in the Vietnam War. The essential themes include "Choosing and leaving for the war without fear", "Enduring confusion from facing strange and extreme situations", "Devoting to work despite tense daily life and even willing to risk their lives", "Establishing a good relationship with ROK armed forces as they shared all the joys and sorrows in a foreign country together", "Feeling satisfaction and rewards from actively conducting tasks and pioneering new territory", "Realizing the pain, constraints, and discrimination experienced by women in the male oriented war", "Discovering themselves as the people who have grown and developed into female / nurse leaders", and "Feeling a sincere patriotism naturally born in hearts." Participants were all unmarried women with most of them were in their twenties at the time of the war. Therefore, they seemed to have chosen to participate in the Vietnam War without fear or any regards for their families' concerns as they had a strong curiosity about the overseas, wanted to contribute their ability at the real field, and expected a prosperous life in the future through the participation in the war. They departed without enough preparation which caused confusion and arrived in Vietnam, a battlefield where battle threats coexist with the exotic romance such as palm trees and beaches. In the horrifying battlefield where the threat of death was still present, the participants tried to adjust to their ways of life in order to survive, and they sometimes shed tears longing for the family and country they had left behind. However, in order to accomplish a given task, they made things out of nothing to complete their missions with strong willpower, and despite the lack of adequate sleep and rest, they struggled and even donated their own blood if necessary to save the injured. They soon realized that battlefield was a place where death was always around, but as tension and anxiety became common in their daily lives, they became rather blunt and numbed to the fact. Participants devoted themselves to the task of burning their will to even die in order to accomplish their tasks, and coped and overcame the stress themselves. Participants had a strong feeling of comradeship with the ROK army forces as they were working together in a foreign land, as well as the feeling that they were bonding like brothers and sisters by blood; they felt especially painful and sad by the death of Korean soldiers dying alone on the foreign soil of Vietnam. Participants, as the only female officers who participated in the Vietnam War, treated Korean soldiers with kindness as if they were the soldiers' sisters and mothers without consideration for the rank of the patients and practiced caring as women apart from their nursing professions as they made kimchi or dumpling soup for the homesick troops. Participants practiced nursing with professionalism and authenticity not only for Korean troops but also for local people and Viet Cong. In addition to the nursing services, they pioneered into new fields of work that were not carried out in Korea such as military aid to civil authorities, aircraft evacuation of patient and military psychological warfare territory and proved expertise in the fields. They felt proud and accomplished by their successful results. Participants were a minority as non-combatants and females in male oriented battlefields predominately with male combatants. From a woman's point of view, they were able to understand the wounds local women experience from the war and to realize the limitations set for the female nursing officers, prohibiting them from doing certain tasks; they sometimes protested against unreasonable discriminations. Learning Vietnamese and Vietnamese-French culture in Vietnam, they familiarized themselves with the international sense and encountering the advanced level of nursing of the U.S. military which was ahead of Korea, they were able to achieve the opportunity to establish the long-term vision of Korean military nursing. In addition, learning the dark side of the war that was unable to recognize before the war, they were able to reflect on the meaning of the war from a critical point of view. In the process of providing nursing care to Korean soldiers, Vietnamese and Vietnamese soldiers hanging between life and death in the battle fields, they gained a strong sense of self-confidence and ability to do anything, and felt themselves maturing and developing as female and nurse leaders. Participants cherished the strong patriotism naturally developed through the war in Vietnam until the present after fifty years had passed, feeling responsible for the development of our country, and still willing to contribute to national development in the future. This study is historically meaningful in that it explores the unique experience of the unmarried female nursing officers' experience of the war in Vietnam. There is a historical significance in understanding their experiences by exploring the meaning and essence of their experience as women, nurses and officers in the special situation of war, and in using them as precious materials for military nursing.
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