Doris Ilda Allen

Arrival in Vietnam in 1967 (center)

Doris "Lucki" Ilda Allen (9 May 1927 – 11 June 2024) was an American PE teacher from El Paso who joined the US Army in its Women's Army Corps (WAC) in 1950.

She auditioned for the WAC band, playing the trumpet but was not accepted. She served in a variety of specialities including entertainment, information and journalism. She then learnt French, interrogation and other intelligence skills and did three tours of duty in the Vietnam War, starting in 1967. She gathered intelligence and wrote a report which correctly predicted the Tet Offensive ahead of its start in 1968 but this warning was ignored. Her later warnings included an ambush, chemical weapons and rockets and these were so effective that the Viet Cong put a price on her head.

She was awarded three Bronze Stars for her service in Vietnam. Back in the US, she became the first full-time female instructor of prisoner interrogation at the Army Intelligence Center and then became a counterintelligence specialist. She retired from the military in 1980 and was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 2009.

After military service, she studied psychology, gaining a doctorate in clinical psychology at the Wright Institute in 1986. In 2014, she wrote her memoirs, Three Days Past Yesterday: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Incredibility.

She died on 11 June 2024 at the age of 97.