Military lessons learned from historical conflicts

Military Lessons Learned From Vietnam: Achieving Professionalism in Nursing

The war in Vietnam is no longer America's lengthiest war, but it remains one of the costliest with more than 53,000 American lives lost and billions in national treasure spent. Indeed, the Vietnam War made it clear that it is possible to win all of the major military engagements but to still lose the war. Despite this overarching failure, a contemporary analysis of the Vietnam War can provide some valuable lessons learned. To gain some additional insights in this area, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature concerning the use of military nurses by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, and the military lessons that were learned from this experience that can assist in accomplishing a nursing mission more effectively. A summary of the research and important findings are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis

Just as truly effective leaders use different leadership styles from time to time, military planners frequently assume a different perspective in formulating their plans as well. In this regard, military leaders who use strategic thinking seek to identify unique opportunities and ways to achieve an organization's goals in a "how do we get there from here?" fashion (Porter, 1990). By contrast, tactical planning employs pre-approved scenario templates that are used to develop timely responses to current and projected operational requirements (Davison, 2008) and logisticians are responsible for the analysis and coordination of the logistical functions of an organization (Logisticians, 2012). Like other leaders, although I wear all of these "hats" from time to time, my day-to-day life and work as a nurse suggest that I tend to be a strategic thinker based on the following rationale. The coursework to date concerning lessons learned in the Vietnam War emphasizes the need to garner ongoing support and cooperation from superiors, coworkers and subordinates in order to achieve an organization's mission and this can be accomplished through strategic thinking.

From a strictly military perspective, though, some of the more salient lessons learned from the War in Vietnam that can help me achieve my professional goals today include the need to:

1. Be nonjudgmental;

2. Learn the facts before forming an opinion;

3. Embrace cultural diversity in health care;

4. Develop collaborative practice among nursing teams; and,

5. Promote team work, respect and support for each other.

All of the foregoing are directly related to what one U.S. Army officer considered the most important lesson learned in Vietnam: "Of all the 'lessons learned' from the Vietnam war the need for flexibility in both thought and action is perhaps the most critical" (Summers, 1982, p. 139).