Sharon Ann Lane is the only American servicewoman killed by enemy fire in the Vietnam War. She had been in the country six weeks.
Canton, Ohio
Lane was born on July 7, 1943 in Zanesville, Ohio, and raised in Canton. She graduated from the Aultman Hospital School of Nursing in 1965 and worked in Ohio hospitals for three years.
She joined the Army Nurse Corps Reserve on April 18, 1968, trained at Brooke Army Medical Center, was commissioned a second lieutenant, and served at Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver before volunteering for Vietnam.
She arrived on April 24, 1969, and was posted to the 312th Evacuation Hospital at Chu Lai.
The Vietnamese ward
Lane worked in intensive care and on the Vietnamese ward — the unit that took wounded and sick Vietnamese civilians, prisoners of war and enemy soldiers.
It was the least sought-after assignment in the hospital. The patients were the enemy or the enemy's civilians, the ward was housed in Quonset huts at the edge of the compound, and nurses generally rotated through it rather than staying. Lane asked to stay on it.
She wrote home about the children.
8 June 1969
At about six in the morning on June 8, 1969, the hospital came under rocket attack. Lane went to her ward to get her patients under cover.
A 122mm rocket landed between two of the Quonset huts. It killed Lane and a Vietnamese child.
She was twenty-five, and had been in Vietnam for forty-five days.
Afterwards
Eight American servicewomen died in Vietnam. All eight were nurses. Seven died of illness, accidents or aircraft crashes. Lane is the only one killed by hostile fire, and one of only a handful of American women killed by enemy action in any American war.
She received the Bronze Star with Valor device, the Purple Heart, and the Vietnamese Gallantry Cross with Palm.
Aultman Hospital raised a bronze statue of her in 1973, the first memorial in the United States to a woman killed in Vietnam. Her name is on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. At the Vietnam Women's Memorial, dedicated in 1993, eight yellowwood trees stand for the eight women who did not come back. A clinic at Fort Bragg and a building at Fitzsimons carry her name.
Related
Sources
- Sharon Ann Lane, for the chronology, her assignment and the circumstances of her death. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- Vietnam Women's Memorial. National Park Service. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- Army Nurse Corps in Vietnam. Army Medical Department Office of Medical History. Accessed September 9, 2026.