By Paige Zulandt

Dorner Carmichael joined the American Red Cross in 1970 to volunteer as a Donut Dolly in Vietnam. “Donut Dollies” was the nickname for the hundreds of female American Red Cross workers that deployed overseas to provide support for millions of U.S. service members during the Vietnam War. Dorner spent an entire year there volunteering, and now over 50 years later, she is deploying overseas once again. This time she is part of Team 57 and will be in Powidz, Poland as a volunteer with the American Red Cross Service to the Armed Forces.

“I decided I need a bookend,” Dorner shares. “I started life with the Red Cross and there is nothing like an overseas deployment with the Red Cross.”

Dorner says the primary mission while she is there is transmitting emergency communication messages through the Hero Care Network. She will be part of the team that helps locate service members when they need to return home for a family emergency. She will also help coordinate leisure activities at their Red Cross Respite Center.

“We try to always have an area where service members can come to get away from being in the military, where rank doesn’t count, where they can find maybe something that’s like home,” Dorner explains.

While she was in Vietnam, she said they brought out yo-yos and decks of cards to help keep service members entertained. They didn’t have electricity and batteries only lasted for so long in the tape decks. Even the cards got mildewed during the monsoon season. But now she is ready to engage with a new generation and find ways to get them out of their barracks and socializing.

“We can have pizza parties, we can play cards, that’s what I did in Vietnam,” Dorner says. “A touch of home, only in Vietnam.”

Her time overseas made a big impact, influencing her career choice. When she returned home from Vietnam, Dorner went back to school and became a physician assistant.

“Vietnam fundamentally changed me,” Dorner shares. “I realized what I could do, I could follow my passion.”

Once she retired, Dorner started volunteering for the National Park Service. She bought a camper and traveled around the country to volunteer at different National Parks. It was at the yearly convention of the American Red Cross Overseas Association that Dorner learned about this new six-month deployment opportunity. Once she was accepted for the job, she had to wait a year after missing the first deadline. But that didn’t mean her time with Red Cross was on hold. She found a local chapter while she was traveling back and forth between Georgia and her son’s home in Tennessee. Dorner discovered the Northeast Tennessee Chapter of the American Red Cross of Tennessee.

“They are so great,” Dorner says. “I did a little of this, little of that with them. They’re just so welcoming.”

Before deploying, Dorner also spent two weeks training at Camp Atterbury in Indiana. Her connections within the Red Cross continue to grow.

With this new journey to Poland, Dorner says she is most looking forward to new experiences and seeing if she can stretch herself “in a way that will contribute in a meaningful way to this era, these young people.”

If you are interested in learning more about volunteering with Service to the Armed Forces, click here.