Vietnam service nurse to keynote Veterans Day event Nov. 10

Kent County Chapter 850, Vietnam Veterans of America, will host one of its own as the keynote speaker for its Veterans Day ceremony at 2 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 10, at the Kent County Veterans Park on South Little Creek Road, Dover.

Rhona K. Prescott is a nurse who served multiple roles in Vietnam beginning in Saigon in 1967. She assisted with thoracic and brain surgery, and later served as acting chief nurse in a tent hospital in the central highlands. Finally, she was assigned to a POW hospital before rotating home in 1968. After licensing as an RN, she was commissioned into the Army Nurse Corps in 1961 and served as an operating room nurse in a number of stateside assignments followed by a year in Korea. She received orders for Vietnam after completing an administrative and management course.

After returning with nearly seven years’ service, she resigned her commission to become a mother and officer's wife. Her husband Stephen, a Vietnam veteran, later died from a service-related condition. After finishing graduate school at the University of Houston, Prescott began a second career as a clinical social worker, eventually retiring from the VA Readjustment Counselling Service, known also as the Vet Center system.

Prescott’s specialty was and still is PTSD. She went into private practice and began publishing professional articles. Her writing included some of her experiences in Vietnam, and she has parts of six books and a play to her credit. After retiring, she became involved with the homeless population. She helped found a shelter in New York state, and she is working on one in lower Delaware. She is a member of VVA Chapter 1105, Millsboro.

“We are very much looking forward to welcoming Rhona Prescott to this event along with our fellow veterans from all generations. There’s no one who appreciates and honors what she did more than her fellow Vietnam veterans,” said Chapter 850 President Joe Startt, himself a Purple Heart recipient.