It is well-known that war veterans experience long-lasting physical and psychological injuries following their deployment, and recent studies have proposed the construct of moral damage to explain the moral and spiritual effects of war on individuals.

Current research on moral injury has focused solely on male veterans. However, women have served in the military since colonial times, most often as nurses.

This book identified signs and symptoms of moral injury as reported by 100 randomly selected female veterans who served in the Vietnam War from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS). Major themes identified by coders were compared to those previously identified. Results suggest that nurses in Vietnam experienced symptoms of moral injury consistent with those previously identified in male combat veterans and at a higher rate.