Joan A. Furey

A nurse works in hospital conditions similar to where Furey worked in Vietnam

Joan A. Furey (born in Brooklyn, NY in 1946) is a United States Army nurse veteran. She began her military service in 1968 when she joined the Army Nurse Corps. Her patriotism influenced her volunteered deployment to Vietnam in 1969 where she served as a second lieutenant and eventually earned the Bronze Star. Her dedicated service continued when she returned home as Furey focused on aiding other returning Vietnam veterans. Her post-war accomplishments include, earning her master's degree in nursing from New York University in 1975, pioneering studies in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) through her service in The Department of Veteran Affairs, and her service as the Director of Center for Women Veterans.

Early life

Joan A. Furey was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1946 and grew up on Long Island during her childhood. Growing up in a patriotic home, Furey was raised by a father who was a WWII veteran. In an interview later in her life, Furey spoke more candidly about her father's service. He served in Germany and France where he was wounded on the front lines. After returning home, he couldn't hold a job and Furey attributes this to PTSD, even though it hadn't been specifically labeled and diagnosed yet. She remembers attending Memorial and Veteran Day parades. Her love for her country even at a young age propelled her future career. Furey recalls knowing she wanted to be a nurse as early as ten years of age. She attended and graduated from the Pilgrim State Hospital School of Nursing in Brentwood, New York in 1967. Furey remembers two very opposite views of the Vietnam War. While her peers protested at Columbia University in early 1968, Furey felt no pressure to stand with them. The country was ever divided as the war in Vietnam raged on and prominent Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968. Meanwhile, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers planned attacks all across South Vietnam in January 1968, in what is known as the first Tet Offensive. In stead of protesting, Furey chose to go to war.

Furey was awarded the bronze star for her service as a Nurse in Vietnam.

War service

In July 1968, Furey left for basic training at Fort Sam Houston's Medical Field Service School. There she learned basic Army Corps protocol including administration duties, military rank and positions, and understanding common medical departments. In a short six week period, Furey excelled in medical training which often included performing treatments on bleeding goats. After basic training, Furey served at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco, California. Her time spent at Letterman Hospital helped prepare her for life at war in Vietnam as she worked in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and emergency room. While there she cared for wounded Vietnam War soldiers with injuries ranging from shrapnel wounds to amputees. Furey deployed to Vietnam on January 27, 1969 and remembers bombing her first sleepless night in the battle field at Bien Hoa Air Base in South Vietnam. Furey would be transferred to a very short handed unit in the Central Highlands called the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku, Vietnam. Her experience in the ICU at Letterman Hospital allowed her responsibility in the ICU at the 71st Evacuation Hospital, even as a young nurse. As many nurses, Furey had to find within herself a detachable emotion to the soldiers she worked on and the war itself. The demoralizing war and the unanswered questions of why America was involved took a toll on Furey as the war raged on. Furey would spend a full year in the ICU unit as she refused to be rotated out after six months. Her nursing efforts saw her care after not only U.S and ARVN soldiers but for Vietnamese civilians also. Furey was discharged from the Army in 1970 and she returned home after spending a full year in the service of her country in Vietnam. She was awarded the Bronze Star for her patriotic duty and heroic nursing efforts.

Post-war life

File:Vietnam War Women's Memorial.jpg

The Vietnam War Women's Memorial depicts the suffering of many female veterans of the war, whom Furey sought to help after the war through her work with the VA.

Furey returned home and went back to school aided by the G.I. Bill. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Stony Brook University in New York City and then received her Masters of Science in Nursing degree from New York University in Manhattan, New York. Her post-war efforts directly correspond with her service in Vietnam as she pioneered efforts in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and women veterans affairs. Her career is heavily based in nursing efforts for the Department of Veteran Affairs where she served for 30 years. She would work all over the country in veteran projects including Bay Pines, Florida and Menlo Park, California in various capacities. She would help conduct research in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the psychological effects of war on women veterans.

Work in PTSD

Although Furey's time at war was short, the impact of her service was life-changing. Like Furey, many other veterans returned home, but their minds suffered from major damage back in Vietnam. Tragedy, bloodshed, and death caused many veterans to suffer from what is now called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a term coined in the 1970s after the effects of the Vietnam War. Furey would devote her life to this cause, helping and aiding women veterans who suffered from PTSD, and who were often forgotten by the general public. Furey began working for Veteran Affairs in 1978 where she was stationed as a nurse at the VA Medical Center in Bay Pines, Florida. Over the next several years, Furey would find herself growing in VA ranks and participating in state-of-the-art research that would define her career. She was named the Director of the Department of Veteran Affairs’ Center for Women Veterans in 1995. As associate director of education at the Palo Alto, California Medical Center, Furey would pioneer the first-ever Veteran Affairs National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Here, she established an in-house treatment program for women returning from war. Furey would be known for her proficiency and knowledge in PTSD study and even testified before Congress in 2000 where she provided statistics on women veterans and their role in society. She tried to get more aid and help from the government to support these women. She worked on numerous scholarly articles and research projects bringing to light the effects of war on service women. Her most well-known accomplishment is her work on Visions of War: Dreams of Peace anthology.

Visions of War: Dreams of Peace

In 1991, Furey co-edited a compilation of poetry pieces from veteran women who served in Vietnam with another former Army Nurse, Lynda Van Devanter. The anthology of poetry was touching and it was real, it brought to life the voices of women who served as nurses in the battlefields of Vietnam. An interview at the United States Air Force Academy in 1999 with Donald Anderson was supposed to capture her thoughts on the co-edited poetry book but the interview discussed much more. After Furey explained that her most favorite Vietnam War literature was Tim O’Brien’s How to Tell a True War Story from The Things They Carried, Anderson asked her about literature from the view of a woman. Furey then explained her work on the poetry pieces. She said women were not willing to use their names in correspondence with their work, they feared the stories would not be appreciated, that readers would not accept their point of view on war. Furey, along with Lynda called and encouraged the women to let their voices be heard, to help them understand many were feeling the same anxieties about their experiences in Vietnam. Successfully they helped the women find meaning in their moving tributes. Anderson continued to ask about life in Vietnam and Furey’s work afterwards, Furey was candid and honest. She explained many women, including herself came from nursing backgrounds but that the young girls had never experienced injuries like they saw in Vietnam. With the horrific things they saw and handled, Furey says the experiences had two outcomes for nurses: they either empowered the women, or completely destroyed them. She goes on to explain how real PTSD was for these returning nurses and how neglected they felt because they had to worry about the dying soldier rather than their own pains and sufferings. Furey would go on to talk about vivid stories from the ER room in Vietnam, her father’s World War II service, and her continued work in Veteran Affairs, especially for women.

Awards and accomplishments

Furey has authored several published pieces, including co-author of a poetry piece titled Visions of War: Dreams of Peace. She has received many awards including, The 1998 National Public Service Award, The Common Cause Public Service Achievement Award in 1998. In 1999, she was the recipient of the Women Executives in State Government “Breaking the Glass Ceiling Award”. She received the Department of Veteran Affairs Exceptional Service Award in 2000, Veteran Affairs Distinguished Career Award in 2004, and she was inducted into the New York State Veterans Hall of Fame in 2015. She most recently appeared in the PBS documentary, The Vietnam War.