Doctor Patricia Smith, next to Kelly, was the most fascinating person I met in Viet Nam. I stopped in to meet her when I dropped off the Montagnard patients. She was a tall blue eyed woman, attractive in a way we all find our mothers attractive. Her demeanor defined compassion. She was also very busy and not into idle chatter. Her patients were waiting. She personally saw 250 per day. And she set a standard of excellence that was painful for some subordinates. As it turned out we had a lot in common and she gave me some time. We were both graduates of Seattle University. She was born at home in Ballard, a suburb of Seattle, one of four children of a butcher. My wife, Nancy, was raised in Ballard and she graduated from Holy Angels Academy in Ballard as did Pat Smith. While at Holy Angels Academy she became familiar with the works of the tragic Dr. Ignaz Phillipp Semmelweis-known as the "Savior of mothers" for his discovery of the cause and prevention of PUERPERAL FEVER or child fever.  In the mid nineteenth century this disease killed about 30% of childbearing mothers. He would be vilified for his political beliefs, be committed to a mental hospital and eventually die of the disease he more than anyone, helped eradicate.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Pat Smith's life would in some respects parallel that of this great man she so admired. She saved countless mothers and their children. As an undergraduate at Seattle University she started in journalism but ultimately could not resist the call to medicine and went on to Medical School at the University of Washington. She did very well in Medical School and could have had any job of her choosing. But she could not resist the unfortunate and helpless and chose to begin her practice helping poor miners in a depressed area of Kentucky. Later she would meet an Australian journalist with Grail, an international organization of Catholic women, whe recruited her with stories of the increadible misery and disease of the Far East, especially leprosy. She knew she must help those with this horrible disease and decided she would spend her life cleaning their sores. She began a period of preparation under Grail, including study at the only leprosarium in the United States in Carville, Louisiana. She also studied at a Seventh-Day Adventists hospital in Saigon and with the famed Dr. Tom Dooley in Laos. I remember a letter from Dr. Dooley to the president of Notre Dame posted at the Grotto there. He was greatly admired but I got the impression Doc Smith did not care for him. Although she learned from Dooley, she did not agree with his appeasement of the sorcerers in his practice. She compared that to teaching children about the stork. Soon they would learn you are fibbing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     In 1959 she joined the Catholic Order of Charity at their Ban-San Leprosarium near Kontum in the highlands of Viet Nam 300 miles north of Saigon. She was paid less than $100 a month. The Montagnards had the highest rate of leprosy in the world. Pat Smith was immediately attracted to these deprived and diseased people, a people despised by the Vietnamese; but a people Dr. Smith found to be honest and good beyond the norm. Only one in four reached the age of 18, many women dying in childbirth as they did in Semmelweis' time, and for the same reason. In addition to leprosy, the plague and rabies, everyone had a strain of malaria imported by the communists from the north and resistant to existing drugs. And most of the children were full of worms each of which sucks a cubic mm of blood from that child each day. These tragic people dearly needed her and she fell in love with them. Her travels in the countryside plus the refusal by the Vietnamese to admit Montagnards to their hospitals, convinced her to build them their own hospital. She left Grail and the leprosarium with two nurses, Joan Blonien and Jean Platz. They would form a medical three musketeers, and work together on Pat Smith's dream of a hospital for her beloved savages.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          They had no money and could not be sure that the Montagnards would accept them. Thanks to Catholic Charities they got the money. Fears about patient turnout were solved after word spread that she "miraculously" cured a dying child. The child had diarrhea and the miraculous cure consisted of an IV. Her hospital, named Minh-Quy, after a French priest Father Quy and a Vietnamese priest, Father Mihn, both killed by the communists, opened in July 1963 after nine months of construction. It was full from day one caring for 150-200 impatients mostly Montagnards, and 75-150 outpatients per day. Many families would walk up to 100 kilometers for her treatment. Although she was not a certified sergeon, she had to perform surgery often and once actually removed a spleen with only a medical book for assistance. This woman was a healer and nothing stopped her from healing . She became known as the Big Grandmother of Medicine and was a goddess to the Montagnards. For that the Viet Cong hated her. They hated any good perceived to be from the existing government. The vileness and cruelty of the communists was beyond belief. They actually fouled her well with feces. They even attacked the leprosarium and killed members of the World Health Organization who were making great strides eradicating malaria in the region. Her hospital was good and she became a prime target for assassination.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            They overran her hospital twice. During the first attack, shortly after TET 1968, they blew up the hospital's laboratory and X-ray and killed all the inpatients in their search for Dr. Smith who hid in a bathtub during the blood-bath. When she came out of hiding she found the floor slick with the blood of her patients; many who died protecting her. One of her nurses was kidnapped by the communists and imprisoned for a year. She rebuilt the hospital which only intensified the communists' resolve to kill her. They completely destroyed Mihn-Quy three years later. She served those primitive people for sixteen years; a female physician, unprotected in the jungle, surrounded by the enemy, fearlessly saving countless lives especially children and mothers in childbirth, which she told me was her greatest accomplishment. She adopted two Montegnard children after their mother was killed by the VC. She raised these primitive children; one becoming a dentist and the other a gifted musician.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I visited with Doc Smith and her 200 pound dog, Bear, shortly before her death. She still longed to return to those great people she had mothered for so many years. Her goal was to be buried as a Montagnard in a hollowed out log among the wooden soldiers surrounded by a people she loved. Pat Smith was a female Father Damien and I was grateful to have her for our Montagnard patients.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           From the book "Victory in Viet Nam - The Legend of Dust Off: America's Battlefield Angels - Dead Men Flying"  by Patrick Henry Brady with Meghan Brady Smith