3 questions with Rosemary Thunder Schwoebel ’67

Schwoebel planned to get married and become a department store buyer in Boston, but the French major found herself halfway around the world in a Vietnam war zone a year after graduation. She became a “Donut Dolly,” the nickname given to women of the Red Cross Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas staff, who raised the spirits of homesick servicemen through recreational programs. She shares her life-changing experiences in A Vietnam Memoir: Adventures of an American Red Cross Donut Dolly 1968-69.

1. Why is it an important story to tell? Few Americans are aware of anything positive that happened during the Vietnam War or that the American Red Cross hired young women to design and present recreation programs. My book, unlike many about the war, is very upbeat because I had, overall, a wonderful year. I attended a reunion with some of the guys from the 101st Airborne in 1986. They said, “There’s a book in there,” but I didn’t get on it until I was scheduled for serious surgery in 2016. Images of dying floated in front of me and I worried that my family would never know what happened over there.
   
   
2. How were you a different person when you returned home than you were when you arrived in Vietnam? At 24 years old, I learned what was important in life sooner than most, and it changed me forever. It’s not material goods. It’s not a career. It’s your faith, family and friends — that’s what matters.
   
   
3. What is something few people know about you? I worked in France during the summer between my junior and senior years of college. The job was children’s camp counselor in the foothills of the Alps. No one spoke English — and I could barely put three words together but claimed I was fluent. One of my UD French professors believed in me, wrote a recommendation, tutored me, and sent me off saying, “You’ll learn when you get there.” I did.