(Washington, D.C) – Vietnam Veterans of America commends the VA Center for Women Veterans for their recognition of the lifelong service, tenacity, and leadership of Lynda Van Devanter, Joan Furey, Dr. Linda Schwartz, and Diane Carlson Evans, by choosing them in the 2025 Women Veterans Trailblazers Initiative,” said VVA National President Jack McManus.
“These women represent a large cohort of female Vietnam veterans who richly deserve this recognition,” McManus said. “They have emerged as trailblazers because their service to their country and fellow veterans reaches long past their time of active service during the Vietnam War. The story of each of these women is truly inspirational. They each embody courageous leadership and passionate advocacy for all veterans to which contemporary servicemembers owe a great debt.”
Lynda Van Devanter Buckley (1947-2002) served in 1969 at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku as an Army nurse. On her return home, Van Devanter began a lifelong journey of understanding, articulating, and advocating for the needs of all women veterans, forging a path for others. In her leadership role, she spearheaded the VVA Women Veterans Project and eventually created the Women Veterans Committee within VVA. In so doing, she became one of a handful of women to take on the issues confronting women veterans on the local, state, and national level. Through her outreach, conducted on many levels — delivering Congressional testimony, working with VVA, and courageously sharing her personal story, Home before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam (1983) — she changed the lives of countless women veterans suffering in silence. In the early 1980’s, Van Devanter advocated for a GAO demographic study of women veterans under VA care, the findings of which established that VA was not delivering equal access to veteran care and benefits. This report (HRD 82-98) and its findings and recommendations broke historic ground, laying the foundation upon which much has been built over the years in terms of the treatment of women veterans.
Joan Furey began her Vietnam service in January 1969, when she landed at Bien Hoa Air Base, spending her first night in-country under air attack. She served at the 71st Evacuation Hospital at Pleiku, in the Central Highlands. At the end of her tour, Furey returned home and went back to school, receiving her B.S. and M.S. in Nursing, and began to research women veterans’ issues and the invisible wounds of war. She served for 30 years in a variety of roles for VA. Furey has been particularly recognized for her knowledge of PTSD, leading research into the psychological effects of war on veterans returning home. From 1984 to 1994, she was a member of the Congressionally Mandated VA Special Committee on PTSD. In 1989, she pioneered the first women veteran in-patient program for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder at the Palo Alto VA, where she served as director from 1994 to 2001.
Dr. Linda Schwartz served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War as a flight nurse, achieving the rank of Captain. In 1976, she relocated to Connecticut where she joined the 69th Air Evac Squadron Reserves. After an in-service injury, followed by years of rehabilitation, Schwartz earned an MS from Yale University School of Nursing followed by a doctorate in Public Health from Yale School of Medicine. Her dissertation included studies on the effects of Agent Orange on in-country Vietnam veterans, which has become a lifelong focus. She also worked on pivotal research focused on women serving in Vietnam. In 1989, she first testified before a congressional hearing to advocate for women’s care at VA centers. Ever since, she has been dedicated to addressing veterans’ issues, having testified before Congress dozens of times, mostly for Vietnam Veterans of America.
Diane Carlson Evans led the hard-fought effort to build the Vietnam Women’s Memorial at The Wall in Washington, D.C. She served a life-changing 1968-69 tour of duty as a nurse in the operating and recovery rooms at the U.S. Army’s 36th Evacuation Hospital in Vung Tau and the 71st Evac in Pleiku. In 1983, Evans became a founding member of VVA Chapter 5 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and has spent her life working as a forceful veterans advocate. That advocacy — and her personal experiences in the war and after coming home — led to the movement to create a separate memorial at The Wall in Washington to honor the American women who served in the Vietnam War. The effort came to fruition in 1992 with the dedication of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial. Among many other positions, she continued to chair the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation until 2015.
