Clear Lake resident Rita Lietha’s aunt, Rolande “Frenchy” Amundson, served as a spy in World War II, bringing the Allies valuable information on numbers of German soldiers. She was betrayed and spent over 11 months at Mauthausen Concentration Camp. After being liberated, she continued her life of service and sacrifice.

 

After liberation Amundson was sent to a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria, and then returned to France where she became a nurse. She was sent to Vietnam where she worked as a nurse in a French hospital in Indochina from 1947 to 1949. There she met and married Robert Fournet, a French squadron leader, and they had a son.

 

Two weeks before she was to return to France, Amundson came home to find the Viet Minh had firebombed her house, killing her baby. The same day she was told her husband had been killed on a mission.

 

Devastated by her losses, she returned to Paris to work as a clerk and translator at the American Embassy, where she met Master Sgt. Eugene Oscar Amundson, who was from Becker, MN. They married in 1956.

 

During her time at the embassy, Amundson met and became friends with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who invited her to the U.S., saying, “If you ever want to emigrate to the U.S. give me a call. We need people like you.”

 

The Amundsons eventually moved to Fort Gordon, GA, and she became a naturalized American citizen in 1958.  That same year she was diagnosed with cancer, and while she was at the Walter Reed Hospital undergoing treatments she was visited by the Eisenhowers. 

 

The Amundsons returned to France where they adopted a daughter. For the next few years they lived in Minnesota and a number of places overseas depending on where Eugene Amundson was transferred, and eventually settled in Paso Robles, CA.

 

In 1975 Amundson finally began to share her story in an effort to heal, earning the respect and admiration of many, including the green beret. She was made an honorary member of their organization, the Special Forces Association, and they became her surrogate family after her husband passed away in 1980. 

 

In 1982 she joined the California State Military Reserve. In 1993 she began volunteering at Camp Roberts Historical Museum, where there is a room completely dedicated to her.

 

Over the years she donated over $100,000 to the Special Forces Association, which named its national headquarters in Fayetteville the Frenchy Amundson Building at its dedication in 1996.

 

She’d donated over $50,000 towards its cost.

 

She gave money each year to the Special Operations Association as well as local organizations and citizens, and donated $10,000 to the JFK Special Warfare Museum at Fort Bragg, NC. 

 

When she passed away on October 7, 1997, the crowd was a sea of uniforms, including the Special Forces, the California State Military Reserve, the California National Guard and veterans’ groups. She received full military honors, was posthumously promoted to colonel, and because she had jumped behind enemy lines in WWII, she also earned the Red Beret of U.S.

paratroopers.

 

Amundson believed life’s hardships help make the good in life even better. When speaking with military wives and widows she said, “Many of our countrymen never fully realize what they enjoy as Americans. They’ve never seen contrast. Because you and I have paid a price of sacrifice, we appreciate freedom. We recognize the joy of living. In that respect, perhaps what we have suffered has really been a godsend.”