Doughnuts: A Delicious History: Donut Dollies

Donut Dolly puts you in the Vietnam War face down in the dirt under a sniper attack, inside a helicopter being struck by lightning, at dinner next to a commanding general, and slogging through the mud along a line of foxholes. You see the war through the eyes of one of the first women officially allowed in the combat zone. When Joann Puffer Kotcher left for Vietnam in 1966, she was fresh out of the University of Michigan with a year of teaching, and a year as an American Red Cross Donut Dolly in Korea. All she wanted was to go someplace exciting. In Vietnam, she visited troops from the Central Highlands to the Mekong Delta, from the South China Sea to the Cambodian border. At four duty stations, she set up recreation centers and made mobile visits wherever commanders requested. That included Special Forces Teams in remote combat zone jungles. She brought reminders of home, thoughts of a sister or the girl next door. Officers asked her to take risks because they believed her visits to the front lines were important to the men. Every Vietnam veteran who meets her thinks of her as a brother-at-arms. Donut Dolly is Kotcher's personal view of the war, recorded in a journal kept during her tour, day by day as she experienced it. It is a faithful representation of the twists and turns of the turbulent, controversial time. While in Vietnam, Kotcher was once abducted; dodged an ambush in the Delta; talked with a true war hero in a hospital who had charged a machine gun; and had a conversation with a prostitute. A rare account of an American Red Cross volunteer in Vietnam, Donut Dolly will appeal to those interested in the Vietnam War, to those who have interest in the military, and to women aspiring to go beyond the ordinary.

The young women who served in South Vietnam with the Red Cross Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas (SRAO) program were known informally as Red Cross recreation workers. To the American men who served during the Vietnam war they were simply Donut Dollies. Ask any Donut Dollie why she was in Vietnam and she would tell you that she was there because the men were there. Ranging from large bases such as Cam Ranh Bay to forward Landing Zones and firebases, their job was to provide GIs with a brief respite from the war through games, Kool-aid, or just their presence. In Donut Dollies in Vietnam: Baby-Blue Dresses & OD Green, Nancy Smoyer, who served as a Donut Dollie during 1967-68, writes a poignant memoir of her Vietnam experience, both during and after the Vietnam war. Based on Nancy's photographs and letters and tapes home, as well as emails written to veteran groups since 1993, she pulls together material from others to share the emotions and events she and other Donut Dollies experienced.

American service men in England during World War II called American Red Cross girls "Doughnut Dollies." It was a warm and affectionate term designed to show the soldiers' appreciation for the morale-building efforts of the American Red Cross. The Red Cross girls operated "clubmobiles" which were driven to air bases where the girls served fresh doughnuts, hot coffee, and broadcast Big Band music over loud-speakers to welcome airmen as they returned from missions overseas. Red Cross girls also helped establish and operate recreation clubs wherever American service men were stationed. In London, fourteen American Red Cross clubs furnished entertainment, meals, snacks and maintained dormitories for soldiers on leave. This novel is the story of two Red Cross Aero Club directors stationed on air fields where they were instructed to establish recreation clubs. It is a story of their accomplishments, frustrations, romances, and the tragedies they witnessed and experienced. * * * * Helen Airy was raised on a cattle ranch in Northern California. After graduation from the University of California at Berkeley, she was employed for several years as a columnist on the "San Francisco Examiner." At the outbreak of World War II, her restless ways led her to join the American Red Cross personnel in war-time England. Airy served in England in various capacities where she gained an understanding of the tragedy of war. She saw courageous young men lose their lives and witnessed the grief their loss left behind. She came to admire and appreciate the stiff upper-lip courage and the generosity of the English people who opened their doors and their hearts, and shared their meagre provisions with the American and other forces that flooded their country. Airy has always been proud to be called a "Doughnut Dolly."