The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 130

E2 THE MORNING CALL, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1987 Women vets may get a memorial APPEL-JEWELER 623-625 Hamilton Mall Allentown Store Hours Dally 1 0 A.M- to 5 RM. CLOSED SUNDAY In our Tiffany Collection Exclusive by PaJoma Pica sso i. "Even in the 'Jtra hospitals, the program' mi iiiy i i-rpn't cognizant of i heir he mninued. "They Uir have the same pi ubii-in. as ire men the post-traumatic stress disorder and therefore didn't need help.

But now it's known that they do." However, he added, "very few have sought help. Of the 15,000 veterans we ve helped in our seven years of existence, only two or three percent were women." Not a veteran herself, Spelts became an activist on their behalf only a few years ago. She cited an inci- dent which crystallized her determination to get their story out. "It was at a veterans' parade in New York," she recalled. "There was a unit of women marching in it, and all along the route I could hear spectators saying 'I didn't know there were women in And, she says, while many women aren't yet ready to talk, a network of sorts has sprung up among them.

"You see them here and there at veteran's events looking for each other, and when you talk to them they'll tell you they're hoping 'maybe just one more will show But at the same time, getting them to participate formally is another matter. "In order to march as a unit in the Philadelphia dedication parade, 10 women were needed," Spelts said. "You wouldn't believe the number of phone calls it took to round them up!" She's hoping that her book, along with the memorial statue that will recognize the sacrifices they made along with the men, will make it easier in the future. an army nurse who was stationed near the Cambodian border, is the sole woman member of the Bucks County chapter. She's also the state coordinator for the Women's Vietnam Memorial Project and was the only female member of the committee in charge of the recent dedication of the Vietnam Memorial in Philadelphia.

Said Quinlan, "Grace is certainly the most highly visible woman veteran in these parts. If she hadn't spoken out about the project, nobody around here would even know it exists." Discussing the public's lack of information about women in Vietnam, Spelts divulged another little-known fact There is a woman a civilian on the MIA list. Dr. Ardel Vietti, a doctor who went there in 1958 under the auspices of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, was abducted by Viet Cong guerrillas from her hospital post in 1962 presumably to work in a Viet Cong hospital. She hasn't been heard from since then.

Hope is high that the campaign for funds for the statue (only about half of the $1.2 million needed has been raised so far) will not only make the public aware of women's contributions during the war, but also result in more female veterans being located. "It's very hard to get the word out," Spelts said. "Only about 1,000 women have come forward, so there's a long way to go." Ed Lowry, executive director of the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Multi-Service Center, offered reasons for the women veterans' reticence: "They weren't in actual combat, but they saw the results of the combat and were affected the same way as the men. They saw the mangled bodies, the dead and the dying. the British Isles after her death, but just last month Spelts was able to talk with them when they returned to visit friends in New Jersey.

1st Lt Sharon Ann Lane of Canton, Ohio, was the only nurse who died as a direct result of an enemy attack. She was hit by flying shrapnel from a stray rocket "So you see, the Commission of Fine Arts is wrong. Having a statue representing women at the memorial is what would make it complete," Spelts said. She's aiming for a publication date of her book to coincide with the 1988 dedication ceremony. Designed by Rodger M.

Brodin, a noted Minnesota sculptor, the bronze statue depicts a young woman in fatigues with a stethoscope around her neck and scissors in a breast pocket. It will stand at one end of the wall to balance the representation of three male veterans already in place on the opposite end. The government's attitude, Spelts feels, is a reflection of the attitudes of the women veterans themselves. Most of them went home, resumed their lives and kept their experiences to themselves. "We as a nation couldn't deal with it.

Why should they be expected to be any different?" she asked. According to Brian Quinlan, Pennsylvania coordinator for the Vietnam Veterans of America, women are poorly represented in the state's seven chapters. "There's one member in Bucks County, three in Montgomery County, one in Delaware and one in Berks County," he said, adding that the Department of Defense doesn't even have statistics on exactly how many women were in Vietnam during the war years. Grace Tymkiew of Southampton, Continued From Page 1 instance, is about friendship," she noted. "She had enlisted under the 'buddy system' with her childhood best friend.

The Army tries to keep people who do this together during their service, but in Vietnam they were assigned 25 miles apart. When Carol died, her friend was the official escort who accompanied her body home." Spelts' weekdays are spent in her job in the personnel department at the Bucks County Courthouse, but evenings and weekends are devoted to writing and travel to meet with the nurses' survivors. One of her trips was to South Carolina to meet the family of 2nd Lt. Elizabeth Ann Jones, who was killed with Drazba in the chopper crash. Jones' story is particularly tragic.

She was to be married in Vietnam her mother had even sent her a wedding gown. Her fiance was the helicopter pilot who also died when it went down. Spelts also has met with the parents of Capt. Eleanor Alexander of Riverdale, N. who died in another plane crash along with 1st Lt.

Hed-wig Orlowski of Flint, Mich. Capt. Mary Therese Klinker, the last nurse and only Air Force Nurse Corps member to be killed in Vietnam, was also a victim of a plane crash. She's currently working on a chapter that will tell the story of 2nd Lt. Pamela Donovan, a native of Ireland who became an American citizen in order to comply with Massachusetts law requiring citizenship in order to become a registered nurse.

She had been in Vietnam only three months when she became fatally ill. Her parents went back to "1 fltfttil'BttTIII I HER UNUSUAL "SCRIBBLES" COLLECTION IN 18KT GOLD. THE LARGE BROACH MATCHING EARRINGS THE PLATINUM DIAMOND EARRINGS $1290.00 $350.00 $2900.00 I A MIDWIVES Continued From Page E1 gists. They have the right to practice in all 50 states, although state laws vary widely and it is up to the individual hospital to grant hospital privileges. The American College of Nurse-Midwives, based in Washington, D.C., with chapters throughout the country, says that 85 percent of the deliveries are in hospitals or birthing rooms, so that should a crisis arise, a doctor is not far away.

Elaine Kaplan, president of the New York Certified Nurse-Midwives Association who practices at Metropolitan Hospital in Manhattan, says that more and more hospitals are granting privileges to nurse-mid-wives. Nurse-midwives have traditional wife," she says. "We have far fewer forceps births. We are very creative in getting the woman out of bed during labor and making her change positions." Another type of midwife, one that Kaplan says may be the wave of the future, is the direct-entry midwife. The oldest school just 10 years old, is in Seattle, and has graduated 48 since it opened.

Only one hospital in the state of Washington grants them hospital privileges, so much of their work is done in the home or in birthing rooms. Candidates for the school must have two years of college and then be prepared to study for a solid 27 months, no summer vacations, to complete the course. They do not get a degree in nursing. The administrator of the school, Jo Anne Myers-Diecko, says the majority of graduates go into private practice and work independently. She says there are a handful of other such schools around the country.

day is good nutrition. Nurse-midwives generally won't accept high-risk patients, women with serious health problems, high blood pressure or insulin-dependent diabetes. Some nurse-midwives will also disqualify women in their 40s or a woman expecting twins. But Buchbinder says, "If you can still get pregnant, we will take you." Buchbinder and her partners use Roosevelt Hospital and sometimes need to call in a physician, usually when a Caesarean section becomes necessary. She and her partners have a 14 percent Caesarean section rate, while the general maternity population at that hospital runs 25 percent to 30 percent.

"Some doctors resent us," she says. "They think of us as a financial threat. They want to keep all the patients they can." Others, she says, are receptive. "I've called in a physician and I've seen a physician call in a mid ly been effective in lowering infant mortality and in reducing the incidence of low birthweights by providing prenatal care to hard-to-reach groups. Elinor Buchbinder, one of four partners at Midwifery Services says her patients are typically college educated, often in the arts or in nursing themselves and usually somewhat older than the average first-time mother-to-be.

They often find her by word of mouth. "My patients are the opposite end of the spectrum of the patients in city hospitals who are using mid-wives," she says. "My patients are the yuppie generation. The women are older and they've done more research." In city hospitals like Metropolitan, nurse-midwives have been effective with the pregnant teen-age population, a group that often needs extraordinary prenatal care since they themselves are still growing and many believe 31 soft drinks a THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF JOHN ANTONIO CERRITO'S BEAUTIFULLY SCULPTURED ROSE PIN AND ITS LEGEND OF LOVE CAPTURES THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS. A JOY TO GIVE AND TO RECEIVE.

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