South Vietnamese Women in Uniform: Narratives of Wartime and Post War Lives

The histories of women who served in the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) have been largely ignored in the vast historiography of the Vietnam War in spite of the fact that South Vietnamese women served in the armed forces from 1950 until the end of the war in 1975. From a core of 600 women in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (WAC), the Women’s Armed Forces Corps (WAFC) was formed in 1965, and the number of servicewomen grew to more than 6,000 by 1975, including 600 officers. This article explores the history of the WAC and WAFC from the few published sources available, and examines the life histories of four RVNAF servicewomen who are now resettled overseas. Their narratives reveal that while few others may be aware of their stories, female veterans have succeeded in constructing individual discourses of their war service and post war lives, and are, in the process, creating and preserving the forgotten histories of RVNAF servicewomen.