[citation needed] Serving as a convoyeuse or in-flight nurse,[3] she was stationed in Hanoi and flew on casualty evacuation flights from Pleiku.

[citation needed] Galard found herself stuck in Dien Bien Phu on 28 March 1954, when the C-47 on which she was the convoyeuse landed in fog and damaged an oil tank which prevented its taking off again.

[citation needed] Volunteering to work in the field hospital, Galard was the only female nurse at Dien Bien Phu.

[10] After the induction ceremony she told her Foreign Legionnaire sponsor: "If we ever get out of this alive, I'll pay you a bottle of champagne no matter where we meet."

However, the Vietminh allowed Galard and the medical staff to continue to care for their wounded and she worked changing bandages despite short supplies.

She was the first of the medical staff to leave and quickly became a media sensation, appearing on the cover of Paris Match that week.

Congresswoman Bolton introduced her as a "symbol of heroic femininity in the free world" and a Ticker Tape parade down Broadway in her honor was attended by perhaps 250,000 spectators.

[15] On 29 July 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded her the Medal of Freedom during a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, calling her the "woman of the year"[16] She was then sent on a tour of six states where she met with luminaries and appeared before large crowds in cities such as Cleveland, Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco.