MOORE: [00:00:06] In January of ’69 a good friend of mine called me one day and said, “Hey, Doug, I need a favor.”

HOST: [00:00:13] That’s Doug Moore, a Dustoff pilot who flew almost 1,900 missions across his two tours in Vietnam.

MOORE: [00:00:20] I said, sure, Ed anything. And he said, uh, we’ve got two women down here who run the Army Recreation Center for the enlisted soldiers. One of them is being transferred up to Cu Chi, where you are. And he said, is any possibility you can come and pick her up. So I fly down there and pick up this very attractive young gal.

HOST: [00:00:39] Her name was Debbie Alexander, and she was one of 637 Red cross volunteers, known as Doughnut Dollies, who volunteered to go to Vietnam during the war. She spent the next several months hitching rides with Doug’s outfit to base camps and fire bases, comprising some 26,000 men.

MOORE: [00:00:58] Forty-five years later, I was speaking at the Vietnam Women’s Memorial on Veterans Day, and when I finished speaking, I was standing off to the side and I turned to walk away and somebody tapped me on the shoulder and says, “Hi, Major Moore, I’m Debbie from California. Do you remember me?” And I turned, and there was Debbie, and the long story short is, uh, i couldn’t talk to her. I was in a hurry. I had to be to another meeting at 10:00. So I said, Debbie, give me your email address. So a couple of weeks later, I sent her an email, and we continued emailing back and forth over the next year, but strictly as friends. Well, the following year, I guess, uh, I got an invite to go to Vietnam. And so I called Debbie and I said, hey, do you want to go back to Vietnam? And she said, I can’t go because I had back surgery recently. So I said, okay, I’ll go. And two weeks before we were to leave, the trip was cancelled. Several months later, the tour company who had been putting this together called me and said, hey, Doug, uh, some of the guys who wanted to go on the original trip still want to go, and we’d like for you to go. And so I called Debbie and I said, hey, Deb, this thing is on again. Would you like to go? And, uh, you know something magic happened while we were traveling, and we wound up getting married.

HOST: [00:02:29] Such an amazing story. Who doesn’t love a happy ending, right? But it raises some questions, at least for me. Like who were these Donut Dollies? And why would any twenty-something college-educated woman volunteer to work in a war zone halfway around the world? In this episode, a former Donut Dolly shares her personal story.

KELLY: [00:02:49] Some of the girls liked working in the clubs. Some girls like going forward better. I liked going forward. I loved going out to the fire bases, seeing these guys. Um, something I’ll never forget. Never, never, never.

HOST: [00:03:06] Stick around.

HOST: [00:03:12] From the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Founders of The Wall. This is Echoes of the Vietnam War. I’m your host, Michael Croan, bringing you stories of service, sacrifice, and healing from people who still feel the impact of that conflict… More than 50 years later. This is Episode 46: “Donut Dollies.” The American Red Cross “Clubmobile” service got its start during World War II, providing food, entertainment, and a connection to home for American men fighting in theatres of war. They were known, among other things, for making doughnuts for service members, which is where the nickname comes from. They provided similar morale-boosting visits during the Korean War, and by the time the Vietnam War rolled around, they had evolved into the American Red Cross Supplemental Recreation Overseas Program. And even though they didn’t make doughnuts in Vietnam – it was far too hot for that – the nickname stuck. The Donut Dollies were often called in to visit a unit after it had experienced intense fighting and had suffered heavy casualties in their powder blue dresses. The donut dollies brought hope and comfort. They played games, listened when men needed to talk, and broke the monotony of war with reminders of home. Peggy Kelly of Rochester, New York, served in Vietnam from November 1969 to November 1970. In 12 months, she was stationed in Tuy Hoa, Cu Chi, Cam Ranh Bay and Long Bình. She joined me via zoom from her home outside of Washington, DC. What do you want to share about your your early years that might have led you to volunteer to go to Vietnam?

KELLY: [00:05:11] I remember having a wonderful life as a kid, um, not… sort of middle class, but, you know, pennies were pinched. And when your parents are, uh, um, have lived through the depression, they sort of instill in certain things in, in you about making sure that you knew what was important in life. And money wasn’t always the most important thing. My dad was a shift worker at Kodak, as most people were up in Rochester, New York, and my mom was legally blind. She could see, but she couldn’t drive. Um, she couldn’t really do a lot outside her home. So that made my sister, Pat, and I very independent at a young age, we were able to take a bus any place and walk up to a pool, walk up to a skating rink and think nothing of it. Um, carpools weren’t part of our vocabulary at all. I was ready to see more of the world and meet more people from different backgrounds. So, um, I ended up going to State University at Albany, and I majored in history and political science. So it was around a three-hour drive from Rochester. And, um, I didn’t I didn’t go home very much, except, you know, the regular vacations. Even then, I needed to get away and see different things and experience different things. But I was involved in student government and a couple other things, and during the four years I, I had the best job in the world. I was a tour guide at the state Capitol. I loved that job. It was just part time, but it was, um, very interesting meeting all kinds of people.

HOST: [00:07:19] Mhm. So if you don’t mind me asking, Peggy, what? When did you graduate from SUNY Albany?

KELLY: [00:07:24] Um, I graduated in 1969.

HOST: [00:07:28] Okay, so so that’s that’s after Tet, right. Just to put it in perspective. Um, by, by ’69, by the time you graduated, uh, you know, the war in Vietnam had sort of turned, and public sentiment had turned with it. Uh…

KELLY: [00:07:44] Yes.

HOST: [00:07:45] …After Tet. Walk me through the process that led you to volunteer to go there.

KELLY: [00:07:51] Well, back then, a lot of people did go on peace marches, especially, I think, in the northeast. And I went on several peace marches. I really wasn’t for the war. I would see these, um, uh, fellow students, especially the ones in political science. I mean, these guys were so intense because they did not want to flunk out of school. If they did, they were drafted. And, um, I, you know, I just got the sense of of knowing what’s going on in this world, and I wanted to know what was going on. I felt it was so unfair that the guys were being drafted. Women didn’t have to do anything. Um, I believe in everybody should have to do some type of service. And that’s probably why one of the reasons I went there and during senior year, both the American Red Cross and Special Services, which was, um, a part of the Army, um, civilian part, that that they were in charge of service clubs and libraries and all kinds of recreation opportunities. They both came to Albany to recruit. So I decided, well, I had no idea what I was going to do after college.

KELLY: [00:09:15] I thought, I don’t have the money to go to law school, and I don’t have the intensity to go. And I thought I could always stay in Albany and work for the federal or the state government. But I thought, well, I’ll, I’ll go to these, um, interviews. So both sounded really neat. And I applied for both positions. Um, the one in for the American Red Cross was either one year in Korea or Vietnam. The job for Special Services was a either three years in Europe, two years in Panama Canal Zone, or one year in either Vietnam or Korea. So I applied for both positions and I got a call from Special Services and they had an opening in Europe. Well, I thought three years in Europe sounded like an eternity. So I turned it down and I thought if I liked this kind of work, I can always re-apply. And then I got an offer from the Red Cross and I took it. It just, um, it just sounded better. I just like the program. And I had a feeling that we would have better training, which was the case.

HOST: [00:10:38] So you’re 22 years old. You’ve just gotten out of college. It’s 1969. And all of the backdrop that that entails. And to you, a year in Vietnam sounds better than three years in Europe.

KELLY: [00:10:49] Yes. Only because you know the time, the time… And when you’re, when you’re young, you think, uh, three years is an eternity, whereas one year, you know, you blink and it might be over.

HOST: [00:11:04] Mhm. Mhm. Okay. So you took the Red Cross offer and what happened next?

KELLY: [00:11:11] Well I had to go, um… Physical and all kinds of shots over the summer. And I was all excited thinking I was leaving in September. And then eastern area, uh, Red Cross called or sent a letter saying, I’m sorry, but you’re not going to be in the September class. You will be going down to Washington and the end of October. So that sort of bummed me out. I was very, you know, ready to go. And, just, the waiting wasn’t, you know what I really was anxious to do.

HOST: [00:11:46] So even though it was only a month, it felt it felt like, uh…

KELLY: [00:11:50] It did

HOST: [00:11:51] …an unwelcome delay.

KELLY: [00:11:52] Mhm.

HOST: [00:11:53] Another month in Rochester. It’s starting to get cold up there. Right?

KELLY: [00:11:58] Well you know, you don’t sit around at home. So I got a temporary job and I’m working at some foundry filing papers and, you know, just to make money and keep busy and just waiting.

HOST: [00:12:13] Yeah. And they told you, I believe, if I recall correctly, they told you why. Why you had to wait a month?

KELLY: [00:12:20] Well, I, you know, I found out later there was another gal from Rochester who was in the September class, so they didn’t want two women to be in the same class from the same area. The Red Cross was very, um, uh, thoughtful to make sure that these girls were from all over, all over the States, which is was a very important part of being there.

HOST: [00:12:50] And why was that important?

KELLY: [00:12:51] Well, when you’re at a either a club, um, a Red Cross recreation center, or if you’re out at a fire base, you’re always with another girl and you say your name. “I’m Peggy, and I’m from New York.” The other gal is, “I’m Linda and I’m from Georgia,” or “I’m Sue and I’m from Texas” or “Pam, I’m from Michigan.” And the guys get pretty excited when they hear someone and from their general area.

HOST: [00:13:24] Mhm. Yeah. So they didn’t want to two gals from Rochester know in the same class. So, uh, October you went down to DC and and did your training?

KELLY: [00:13:34] I did, we spent two weeks at the uh, the uh Presidential Hotel, which really wasn’t very presidential, on 19th Street. And my roommate was a gal from North Carolina who went to Chapel Hill, and there were ten of us that were going to Vietnam and seven to Korea. So every day we walk down to Red Cross headquarters and have training all day long.

HOST: [00:14:04] How many of these young ladies were college graduates?

KELLY: [00:14:06] All of them. That was part of it. The requirements for the program, you had to be, uh, aged between 21 and 25, a college graduate, and be in good health and be able to adapt to any situation. And many of the gals, uh, weren’t right from college. Some had taught, some had done other jobs, but they were in that age range.

HOST: [00:14:39] So what kinds of training did you go through in D.C.?

KELLY: [00:14:43] Well, I think a lot of it was, um, what not to do when you were in Vietnam, the pitfalls. And, um, I think, you know, through the two weeks, you did get a little more, um, aware of what the situations could be. You got, you got your uniforms, you got your paperwork done, a lot of that stuff. And then I think the last day or so, we packed up all our civilian clothes and sent them back home. I think before I left Rochester there was a trunk that I had sent to Vietnam. Yeah.

HOST: [00:15:27] So I don’t want to assume, Peggy, that that our listeners know what your job was like when you were in DC getting your training. Uh, you know, putting aside for a moment the pitfalls and the things to avoid or not do. What were there, what was your clear sense of of what your purpose was going to be in Vietnam? Like what was your job and how did you go about it?

KELLY: [00:15:48] At one point in time, um, the military had asked to have some type of recreation program that was supplemental to what the Army could provide. And in many places the Army had these special service clubs, but other places they needed people to go out to the field. And it was sort of based on the Clubmobile program from Korea, and in Korea after World War or probably after the Korean War, they would have the “Donut Dollies,” um, which is really just a term of endearment. Not everyone thinks of it, but to me, it’s an easy way to remember our job. It was to provide some type of recreation to the GI’s, no matter where they were. And in the course of a year you were based maybe at two or three different units, and they could be, um, a place where there was a building such as Tuy Hoa at the time I went to Tuy Hoa there it was Air Force, and there was a building, and we worked in the building. There was ping pong, um, billiards. You plan programs just to make sure the guys would forget where they were. The the places where we did not have, um, a brick and mortar, um, rec center, that was called totally Clubmobile program.

KELLY: [00:17:36] And at Cu Chi where, which was my second place. There were maybe ten women, all Donut Dollies. We shared the Quonset hut with some Special Service girls who worked in a building. But every day the Red Cross girls would go out two by two on a chopper, probably at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. And on the chopper you would carry a big canvas bag. And in the bag was a program. And the program was made up of a cardboard and acetate. And it could be something like, uh, based on a TV quiz game, but you would have made it for the guys, so it would be sports, music, whatever, and you’d have a couple other activities. So in the course of a day, if you were at a place like Cu Chi, you get on a helicopter, you go out to a fire base, you have the program for two different um groups, artillery. Then you go over to the infantry part. You might serve lunch with, or eat with the guys there. Then in the afternoon you would go to another fire base and have that program two more times. Every single girl was required to make up a program and it’s usually every, maybe, four weeks.

KELLY: [00:19:06] So there were several different programs going on at the same time, um, depending on where you went. Um, at Cu Chi, which was my second place. My second unit. I was in charge of calling one of the G2, G3, one of them… Every Sunday night and saying, who can we visit this week? And they’d say, okay, you can visit third of the ninth, you can visit second of the third, you can… so I would write up the schedule. So each group two girls and we’d all go out to helicopters and get on the choppers and go visit these guys. You wouldn’t see the same guys every week. Sometimes you saw some more than once. Um, one time I remember we were on a, um, a flight to Ben Cat, and the chopper pilot just said, oh, they’re getting incoming there. So of course we had to turn around and go someplace else. So basically that was what we did. Um, some of the girls liked working in the clubs. Some girls liked going forward better. I liked going forward. I loved going out to the fire bases, seeing these guys. Um, something I’ll never forget. Never, never, never.

HOST: [00:20:35] So you’re there to to help those guys forget for a little bit where they are?

KELLY: [00:20:41] Yes.

HOST: [00:20:41] When was the first time you remember it dawning on you, or realizing, how how meaningful that is?

KELLY: [00:20:53] Well, you know, I always, um, someone said to me before I went, they said, you know, at the end of your tour, you’re either going to love guys or you’re going to hate guys. And I, I felt at the end of my tour tha, I felt like they were my brothers. Nobody hit on me, ever. Um, they they would share things with you that you think, oh, my gosh. But they felt you were part of their family. So, I, a couple things happened. Um, the second place I was at, Cu Chi, um, one time, um, I got a notice that a kid from my neighborhood was at Cu Chi. I think my mom and dad sent me a letter telling me that Pat Graham was a special forces at Cu Chi, and one night, knock on the on the door, the the Doll House, the Quonset hut. And it was Pat Graham. So he came in. He was a couple years younger than me. I mean, I remember him as a kid. He’d shoot baskets in our backyard, he was an altar boy, you know, I’d see him around the neighborhood. And, you know, we had such a wonderful talk. And, uh, right after that, I thought, oh, my gosh, all these guys are young. They’re all, they were all like, Pat Graham. They were all little kids at one time. And it just made me feel a little more connected to them, knowing that, you know, once I saw someone I had known, there.

HOST: [00:22:32] More of my conversation with Peggy Kelly after a short break.

ANN-MARGRET: [00:22:37] Hi, I’m Ann-Margret. I went to Vietnam to entertain the troops in 1966 and 1968. My guys, my gentlemen, if you live through the Vietnam War era, you know the impact that the war had. But today we are in danger of history being lost. Current generations know very little about the war or the people who served as more of our Vietnam vets pass away each day. Their stories are being lost to history. Together we can change that. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is the organization that built The Wall. It works to ensure that future generations will understand the war’s impact. Let’s help keep the promise that the wall was built on. Never forget. Visit vvmf.org to find out how you can get involved.

HOST: [00:23:50] Do you have loved ones who survived the Vietnam War and died after returning home? Did you know you can honor them at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC? We’re still accepting applications for the 2023 In Memory Honor Roll through March 29th. We also have an In Memory Facebook group with almost 20,000 members, so be sure to join that if you want to feel part of a community of people who’ve experienced a loss similar to yours, you’ll find the In Memory Honor Roll application and a link to the Facebook group by going to vvmf.org and clicking on In Memory. We’re just a few weeks away now from kicking off the 2023 tour of The Wall That Heals, VVMF’s exact replica of The Wall at three-quarter scale that travels to cities and towns all across America. If you want to know more about this traveling exhibit and the impact it can have on a community, check out Episode 15 of this podcast. More than 100 communities applied to host The Wall That Heals this year, which is the 50th anniversary of the close of combat operations in Vietnam. The tour schedule includes more than 30 cities and towns stretching from South Carolina to Idaho, and Maine to California. Is it coming anywhere near your town? Visit vvmf.org to find out. And finally, I want to say thank you to our friends over at Witness to War. The clip of Doug Moore that we used to open this episode came from them. They have a tremendous and growing archive of interviews, like that one, with U.S. service members who fought in World War Two and every conflict since. Check them out at witnesstowar.org. And now back to my interview with Peggy Kelly…

HOST: [00:25:42] So you were there for a year? A full year, Yes. What did, what did your family say when you told them that? Yeah. I got an offer to go to Europe for three years, but I’m going to take this other offer. I’m going to go to Vietnam for a year.

KELLY: [00:25:53] My my mom and dad, they were so supportive of me. I mean, it was just incredible. I think it helped that my sister was at home. She was married with a new baby. Um, but I don’t think they, they never, um, they never said anything negative about it. My dad put up the flag every day. They bought a big map of of, uh, of, of, of, South Vietnam that I have now, um, well, all of Vietnam, and they would, you know, put little pins in where I went. Um, and they, they were very supportive and I mean, from, you know, sending me stuff all the time and making sure that my bank account was okay and this and that. There wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do. Um, and I had the best parents. I mean, they could have been so different, but, uh, but my mother once said that her mother, my grandmother, uh, always looked at me and said, this one isn’t going to stay around. Out of her 21 grandchildren, she is… My grandmother just had this feeling that I was going to be the, not the black sheep, but the the sheep that left..

HOST: [00:27:13] The wandering one. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Peggy, was there ever a time that you felt like you were in real danger?

KELLY: [00:27:24] Well, yes and no. Um, at the time, I didn’t know it till we got back. This happened in December of ’69, so I had only been there maybe a month at Tuy Hoa, and it was monsoon season, so the weather wasn’t great, but there was a special, um, trip out to, uh, MACV, um, unit way out, way out. And the Red Cross field director Monty dressed up as Santa. And then this other gal, um, Sharon from Oklahoma and Peggy from New York went with, uh, him to deliver these ditty bags… And ditty bags through these cloth bags that were made in the States by Red Cross chapters, and they were little incident… Gum and candy and shoelaces and whatever to give out to the troops. So we get back on the Chinook and get back to Tuy Hoa, and we get back there. And then someone said, “Gee, we were shot at,” and I and I didn’t know the difference because the Chinooks were very noisy. So that was the one time that, um, yeah, the one time that I, I, uh, felt that could have been, uh, not a great situation. The only other time that was very, um, oh, i’ll never forget it, because it happened at the end of the tour. Um, when I was, I was at Cu Chi, and I got transferred to Second Field Force, um, Long Bình. And and those places weren’t that far from each other. Maybe, um, Long Bình was east of Saigon, Cu Chi was 25 miles northwest of Saigon, but they both had units. Well, a couple of weeks after I was transferred, um, we found out that one of the Red Cross girls was killed at Cu Chi. And this was a girl who had just arrived from country. She had only been there maybe a couple of weeks. Ginny Kirsch from Massillon, Ohio, and I always thought, oh, I wonder if she had been in my bedroom. I wonder if she was there or, you know, had taken my place.

HOST: [00:30:00] Hmm. Do you remember your first, your first time on a helicopter?

KELLY: [00:30:06] Um, yes, I do, because, um, you know, it was exciting being on a chopper the first time. Um, all through that year, though, you would get on a chopper and you’d look at, you know, some of the warrant officers were pretty young. Um, and I think they thought that they were going to scare the Red Cross girls. So they do the auto rotate with the helicopter just going like this. And I think they wanted to see what your face, what you do, and if you had been in country a while, you knew the routine because these guys always tried to do that. And after a while, you know, it’s like, come on, you know, just get real. And uh, but yeah, but every day at Cu Chi we went out by chopper every day and you just got so used to it.

HOST: [00:31:00] Mhm. Uh, can you talk a little bit about the official name for someone doing your job well and why some of the women might not like to be called Donut Dollies.

KELLY: [00:31:09] Well the program was called Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas. So that – SRAO – that was the program. So it was like, you know who’s going to say all that. Yeah. Right. Yes. And um, but but mostly nobody minds now or there’s a few that aren’t crazy about it, but I would say generally out of the 647 women who served there from 1966 to 1972. I don’t think most of them care.

HOST: [00:31:50] Mm. You, uh, are still in contact with a lot of women who served in that capacity. Um, how many are you in contact with? Who you served with, who you have personal experience with?

KELLY: [00:32:06] Well, you know, I was lucky because, um, after Vietnam, I worked for the Red Cross for a year in the States, in West Virginia. And then I ended up going to Europe with, uh, Special Services. And I got to Grafenwoehr, Germany, and which was Seventh Army Training Center, hour’s drive east of Nuremberg. And I go into the BWQ and the first person I saw was Dolly Hasselwander, who I was with at Tuy Hoa three years earlier, and it was just wonderful! So we we were together. She worked at one of the clubs out in the field and I was on main post, but we were, we were in the same BWQ. Well it ended up that I called a lot of these women “Stale Donuts” that we, what he happens to, you know, the Donut Dollies, they’re stale donuts, and they end up working in, in Europe. So I had friends and Mannheim, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, so a lot of women who were in the Red Cross in Vietnam ended up, um, some made it a career with Special Services. Um, and today we have a zoom meeting once a month with Donut Dollies. Most of them I had never known before, except maybe met them at a reunion. I see them once a month and, one’s in Australia, one’s in Alaska… All different histories. Um, no one talks over anybody else. But you have such a bond. I mean, you all have been through something different, but something that’s so special that nobody else can understand.

HOST: [00:34:05] Peggy, what about the men? Are there men that you interacted with over there? Who? Who their, their faces are still kind of burned into your brain.

KELLY: [00:34:14] There was a one, um, group, for some reason, we all. We’d visit them over and over again. They always seem to be in, um, back at the fire base. And they were second of the third Charlie Company, 199th Light Infantry. And, uh, they were sort of attached to the 25th Division or 190… Or, you know, it was either when I was at Cu Chi or when I was at Second Field Force. Uh, and these guys were the nicest guys, this one guy was from Michigan, and he was going an R&R to Hawaii, and he was telling us the only thing he wanted to do was call his parents and have his parents, um, turn on his car. So he listened to the motor of his car and I thought, yeah, Michigan, why not? Motown, right? And then every month, whenever I needed a haircut, I would go to a fire base and say, anyone a barber? There was always a barber, so I had this, I’d be sitting there getting my hair cut and around ten guys would be all watching the haircut. They were the best haircuts I ever had.

KELLY: [00:35:35] Um,the saddest one incidents took place at, uh, Cu Chi, and it was in May of 1970. The Doll House was right next to this, uh, it was called the FAC Shack, forward air control, um, lodging. And they invited us to a party or over to socialize. So we’re over there, and the one guy from North Carolina, he was so excited he was going to see his wife in Hawaii in a couple weeks. So he had an envelope and he said, do you mind mailing it? And we said, sure, we’ll mail it. And then this other guy, um, he walked me back to the Doll House and, um, then the next day we heard they were both shot down, and we went to the service for them. And I thought, we know that they’re gone, probably before their own people do. And they that was tough. Yeah. That was um, especially to, because seeing the the GI’s on fire bases, you know, you’d see them you wouldn’t… And we really didn’t know these FAC pilots that well,but but to see him one night and then the next day to know that they’re… They were gone.

HOST: [00:37:08] When you look at yourself, what elements of Peggy do you look at and say, yep, that’s from Vietnam.

KELLY: [00:37:16] Well, I think going up and asking people where they’re from! And I always think, am I the only one who does this? And um, and somebody said, why do you do that? And I said, well, you know, we live right outside Washington, D.C., people are from all over… And it’s, it’s a sort of a nice way to connect with people. Um, so I know that’s one for sure. I think, um, doing without stuff… Um, or if you go out in the rain and somebody says it’s raining, and then you want to say, I was in the monsoons for three months, rain is not going to bother me, you know, things like that.

HOST: [00:38:05] We’re so grateful to Peggy for her service and for sharing her story with us. As always, we’ve edited the interview pretty heavily for this format. If you want to enjoy the full interview along with many others from our podcast archive, head over to our YouTube channel. We usually post the complete interviews within a few days of publishing the podcast. We’ll be back in two weeks with more stories of service, sacrifice, and healing.

[00:38:34] We’ll see you then.

Full Interview with Peggy Kelly