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| Marjorie Nelson in Quang
Ngai |
At 28, Marjorie Nelson was a
doctor on the staff of AFSC's Quang Ngai
Rehabilitation Center in Vietnam. After months
of working for long hours with little free time
and constant reminders of the human tragedy of
the war, Marge was pleased to take a vacation
to the city of Hué during the Tet holidays. On
January 29, 1968, she set off for a week's
visit with Sandra Johnson, a friend at a
volunteer agency in Hué. However, both women
disappeared shortly after Marge arrived. On
February 9, a secretary from the U.S. Agency
for International Development (AID) reported
seeing a cadre of Viet Cong escorting the two
young women out of the city of Hué. The women
were wearing pajamas, walking hand in hand. For
the next two months, AFSC staff, the women's
families, and U.S. officials tried to learn
their whereabouts, with no success. The women's
names became part of the U.S. State
Department's list of 18 U.S. civilians "known
to have been taken prisoner by North Vietnamese
and Viet Cong forces during the Tet Offensive."
In an interview shortly after
her release, Marge recollected her arrest and
detention by the National Liberation Front
(NLF). The bombing of Hué began in late
January, right after Marge's arrival, and
continued into early February. Marge and Sandra
took refuge in Sandra's bomb shelter, surviving
for several days on Tet candies before they
were discovered by NLF soldiers, who took them
to another location. They remained there for
several more days, while all around them the
city exploded under military force.
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| Truckloads of Vietnamese
civilians were a common sight on city streets
of South Vietnam. |
On approximately February
9, Marge and Sandra were tied at the wrists and
walked out of the city of Hué. Crossing through
the mountains with nothing but wooden "house"
shoes, Marge's feet quickly became sore with
blisters. They traveled for hours through the
dark, sometimes in bare feet, other times in
borrowed shoes, finally arriving at a mountain
village in the wee hours of the morning. They
came to a gate with an arch over it, a typical
entryway to a Vietnamese village, but this one
stirred dismal feelings. "It looked very
forlorn," Marge recalls. "I thought, 'Abandon
all hope, ye who enter here.'" They were put
outside in a fenced area. "It was very
cold with a fine rain falling. We slept on the
ground with no cover… That was a bad night, but
we survived it." This was the only time during
their captivity that she felt the NLF soldiers
could have done more for their comfort.
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| Village in Vietnam after the
war that the Vietnamese refer to as "the
American War," more commonly know in the United
States as "the Vietnam War". |
The next day the women were
forced to begin a week-long trek through the
jungle and across mountains with little food or
water. They were reminded by their captors that
they were being moved away from Hué to safety,
for their protection, which Marge believed was
at least partly the truth. She recalls that the
NLF soldiers took great care to make sure she
and Sandra were not harmed. When they arrived
at a camp, they were well fed and cared for
under the direction of the soldiers' commander,
Nam. Marge welcomed the chance to rest and to
learn about the Vietnamese culture and people.
She and Sandra were given NLF fatigues to wear,
with apologies from Nam that there were no
women's clothes available. They remained in
this location for several weeks, developing new
friendships with soldiers and other
prisoners.
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| Scene of heavy bombing in a
Vietnamese city |
Near mid-March, they began another journey
to another camp, again on foot but with boots
the soldiers had found for them. Three days
into their journey, two of the other prisoners
escaped. "The lists were gotten out, and roll
was called. . . . It wasn't just that two guys
had gone; there was other tension. We had been
told that there might be bombing that morning."
The two women, up until this point, had always
eaten with the men prisoners and slept in a
separate area. This night, however, the men
were called for their meal, and Sandra and
Marge were not. Nam appeared with another
soldier and fed the women dinner. After dinner
he sadly announced he would not be continuing
on with them. Sandra and Marge were worried.
They felt safe with Nam and the rest of the
group and were anxious that the move might put
them into the hands of people less interested
in their welfare. Nonetheless, the next morning
they were separated from the rest of the
prisoners and moved by foot to another
camp.
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| Entrance sign from the Quang
Ngai Quaker Center |
The first words from the camp commander
were, "Do not escape!" Despite this warning, it
soon became apparent to Marge that the move was
a preparation for their release. "It sort of
occurred to them, I guess, that maybe we . . .
shouldn't really be prisoners. We were really
more like guests, and they sort of began to be
a little embarrassed at this prisoner business.
. . . Within several days we were instructed to
not refer to ourselves as prisoners." Near
March 20, the two women were instructed to
write release statements. Marge wrote, in part,
"Almost everyone I met has been both kind and
friendly to me. I have been impressed with the
courage, dedication, enthusiasm, and
cheerfulness of the NFL Forces. There is no
doubt in my mind that they represent a
significant segment of the Vietnamese people
and must be accepted as such." Likewise, the
statement by the NFL distinguished between U.S.
military aggression and U.S. citizens, many of
whom the NFL soldiers understood were not part
of the war machine. The statement said, in
part, "Both above-mentioned American women
showed more or less sympathy with the
Vietnamese people's struggle for national
independence and peace."
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On March 31, 1968-nearly two months after
the Tet Offensive-Marjorie Nelson and Sandra
Johnson were released north of Hué. They were
directed to a path leading to railroad tracks
and then to a road. Still dressed in NLF
fatigues, they caught a bus filled with
soldiers from the Army of the Republic of Viet
Nam (often referred to as ARVN), and so they
found their way back into the city. During the
weeks of Marge's detention, the AFSC staff
members with whom she had worked had pulled out
of Quang Ngai, due to unrest after the
offensive. The AFSC team did not resume its
work at the rehab center until May. Marge flew
home to the United States, but, just
six-and-a-half months after her release, she
returned to Vietnam on September 10 to finish
out her term on the AFSC staff.
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| Salle
Squires, a colleague of Marjorie Nelson at the
AFSC Rehabilitation Center, is shown working
with a Vietnamese boy who is getting used to
his new artificial leg. |
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| Outside
view of AFSC's Quang Ngai Rehabilitation Center
in Vietnam. The airplane wing and lumber in
front of the building were salvaged to be used
in making artificial limbs. |
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| Vietnamese men dismantle an
airplane wing outside the Center. They will use
the wing's parts and sheet metal in building
artificial limbs. Many of these men are
receiving training in the fitting of
prosthetics at the Center. Such training takes
seven years, and these men are three years into
the course. They will, if all goes well,
graduate and go throughout Vietnam to teach
others how to do such work. |
By Joan Lowe, AFSC
Assistant Archivist