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About Sarah L. Blum

Sarah L. Blum, ARNP is a decorated nurse Vietnam veteran who earned the Army Commendation Medal serving as an operating room nurse at the 12th Evacuation Hospital Cu Chi, Vietnam during the height of the fighting in 1967. Because Cu Chi sat on the edge of the Hobo Woods, where all the fighting took place in 1967, her hospital handled mass casualties regularly and their operating room became the largest user of fresh blood in all of Vietnam Back in the United States, Sarah received her brother soldiers of Vietnam with their wounds and amputations, cared for them directly and saw how their physical wounds did not heal when their heads and hearts were deeply affected. She was awarded the Certificate of Achievement for exemplary service as head nurse of the orthopedic ward at Madigan Army Hospital in 1968, where she was also the assistant director of nursing on evening and night shift in 1970.

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" Sarah Blum’s book, Women Under Fire, is a stunning revelation of sexual abuse in the U.S. Armed Forces. As Blum's book makes scathingly clear, this criminal activity--demeaning, degrading and despicable--is far too prevalent in each of the armed services. Action is needed—comprehensive, effective and swift—before sexual abuse rips out the very heart of the military." (Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel, US Army (Retired), former chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell, and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary).