From left, Sue Rhymer and her husband Pete at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku, Vietnam. The photo was taken in 1969. (Photo Provided)

PARKERSBURG — Sue Rhymer spent five years in the U.S. Army as a nurse, including a one-year tour in Vietnam at an evacuation hospital.

After graduating from a three-year nursing program, Rhymer, 82, of Vienna, was studying at Old Dominion at Norfolk, Va., for a bachelor’s of science in nursing. She was working at the children’s hospital to support her in school and met an Army nurse recruiter.

As an Army student nurse, her tuition was paid by the Army.

“I had no idea what I was getting into,” Rhymer said.

Rhymer was 26 when she joined the army. After graduation from Old Dominion she was sent to Fort Sam Houston at San Antonio, Texas, for basic training, then to Fort Lee in Virginia where she was stationed for a year. At Fort Lee she met her husband, Pete, a medic in Vietnam before his transfer to the hospital at Fort Lee, at a commander’s reception.

Sue Rhymer in 1969 on duty at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Vietnam. (Photo Provided)

“I had just come back from Vietnam in 1968,” he said.

They were married on May 3, 1969, then on May 27 were sent to Vietnam to the 71st Evacuation Hospital at Pleiku. Married couples were stationed at the same hospital.

“We had everything you could think of medically,” she said.

However, malaria was prevalent with many of the serious cases caused when soldiers didn’t take the medications to prevent it, she said. A case that remains with her to this day was a soldier with malaria that went into his brain, Sue said.

“By then it was too late,” Sue, who was trained as a pediatric nurse, said.

Pete Rhymer pins the captain’s bars on his wife, Sue Rhymer, in December 1969 at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Vietnam. (Photo Provided)

When the area came under rocket fire, the medics at the hospital would instruct her to put on her flack jacket and helmet and get under a desk or bed, she said. She picked up a piece of shrapnel and kept it as a souvenir.

After Pleiku, the Rhymers were sent to the hospital at Fort Lewis, Washington. She then left the Army.

“I decided it was time I had children,” Sue said.

Sue taught nursing at Marshall University before she and her husband had two children, Sue Anne Pennington, the marketing director for Chick-Fil-A in Parkersburg, and Donald Rhymer, who graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1995 and served until 2019 when he retired as a lieutenant colonel.

Pete remained in the service in the Air Force, from which he retired.

Sue Rhymer cuts a birthday cake in the mess hall at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku, Vietnam. She was 27 in December 1969. (Photo Provided)

Sue was commissioned as a second lieutenant and left the service as a captain. Among her ribbons and medals were a Bronze Star for meritorious service, Vietnam Service and National Defense medals from the United States and a Vietnam Service medallion from the government of Vietnam.

In civilian life, she was involved with the nursing program at West Virginia University at Parkersburg and was a nurse at the former St. Joseph’s Hospital in Parkersburg. She also helped establish the Western Hills Convalescent Center in 1988 in Parkersburg.

While teaching nursing at WVUP, she also was the manager of the Good Samaritan Food Pantry in Vienna for 13 years. After that she began volunteering at Camden Clark Medical Center, which she has done for 29 years.

Sue calls her service in the Army the “best nursing I ever did.”

The big difference between nursing in the Army and nursing in civilian life is that in the Army the nurses did what they could for the soldier without asking the doctors, who had the confidence they would do what’s right, she said. It’s called nursing judgment, she said.

Standing amid armored personnel carriers is Sue Rhymer while she was stationed at the U.S. Army 71st Evacuation Hospital in 1969 in Pleiku, Vietnam. (Photo Provided)

“It was so frustrating when I came back that I had to wait for doctors’ orders to do things,” she said.

Patients at the 71st Evacuation Hospital at Pleiku during the Vietnam War. (Photo Provided)

From left, Sue Rhymer and her husband Pete hold a photo of them while stationed at the 71st Evacuation Hospital at Pleiku, Vietnam. The photo was taken in 1969. (Photo by Jess Mancini)

Sue Rhymer holds the medals she received while serving in the U.S. Army in Vietnam. To the right is the boonie hat she wore while in the service. (Photo by Jess Mancini)