Frankie pulled out the latest of her journals. She’d first begun journaling in rehab, at Henry’s urging. Her first sentence, written all those years ago, in angry black marker, was, How did I end up here? I am so ashamed.
In the years between then and now, she’d written hundreds of pages. They initially chronicled her pain and then her recovery, and finally her coming-of-age in Montana, on the land where she had found herself, her calling, and her passion. She didn’t have children, imagined now that she would never have children, but she had her ranch, and the women who came to her. She had friends and family and a purpose. She had the big, full life she and her brother had once dreamed of.
She opened up the first blank page, dated it, and wrote:
I can’t stop thinking about Finley today. Of course.
Mom and Dad chose not to come to the unveiling of the memorial. I wish they were here, I need them here, but I understand. Some grief is too deep to reveal in public.
We were the last believers, my generation. We trusted what our parents taught us about right and wrong, good and evil, the American myth of equality and justice and honor.
I wonder if any generation will ever believe again. People will say it was the war that shattered our lives and laid bare the beautiful lie we’d been taught. And they’d be right. And wrong.
There was so much more. It’s hard to see clearly when the world is angry and divided and you’re being lied to.
God, I wish we
There was a knock at the door. Frankie wasn’t surprised. Who could sleep? She got up, went to the door, opened it.
Barb and Ethel stood outside, beneath a feeble overhead light. A sputtering neon sign in the parking lot behind them read NO VACANCY.
“Smells like ’Nam,” Ethel said. “I wish you’d let me pay for nicer rooms.”
“It’s her damn overnight bag,” Barb said.
“I have to be careful with money these days,” Frankie said.
The three of them left the room, each wearing whatever they’d worn to sleep in, and walked down the stairs to a kidney-shaped pool that needed cleaning. Lights in the water created an aqua glow, as did the few lights on the exterior of the motel. The neon sign gave off a faint beelike buzzing sound.
“Six bucks and you get a pool,” Barb said, sitting in a creaky lounge chair.
“For seven, they might clean the pool,” Ethel said, sitting beside her.
“I’d rather they wash the sheets,” Barb said.
“Quit complaining, you two. We’re here, aren’t we?” Frankie said, stretching out on the chair between them.
“Last night, I dreamt about our first night in the Seventy-First,” Barb said, lighting a cigarette. “Haven’t thought about that in years.”
Ethel said, “For me, it was my first napalm-orphanage shift.”
Frankie stared out at the water in the dirty pool with the chain-link fence around it all. She’d had those nightmares, too, and they’d wakened her, too, gotten her heart pumping, but she’d also dreamt of waterskiing on the Saigon River, of Coyote’s howl, of Jamie’s smile, and dancing to the Doors with her girlfriends. She’d surprised herself by thinking about Rye—for the first time in years—and found there was nothing left in her that cared about him; all that remained was a patched and faded regret.
“It’s going to be crazy today,” Ethel said. “A huge crowd.”
“We hope,” Barb said.
They all considered that, feared it. The unveiling of a memorial to a war—and warriors—that no one seemed eager to remember.
“We’re here,” Frankie said. “That’s enough for me.”
* * *
In a way, even with as far as she’d come, Frankie feared that the vein of fragility in her would open up when confronted again with Vietnam and all that had been lost there.
This morning, she stared at herself in the mirror, dressed in her fatigues, seeing the young version of herself staring back. She attached her ANC pin to her collar.
Outside the motel, in full daylight, she met up with Barb and Ethel; their husbands and children would be meeting them at the memorial. This, the beginning, was just for the girlfriends.
Each was wearing her fatigues and boonie hat and combat boots.
Barb smiled. “Don’t tell me there were no women in Vietnam.”
A ceiling of white clouds lay over the city. The air smelled crisp and cold, of the coming winter.
Here on the cordoned-off street, Vietnam veterans gathered; thousands of men, dressed in uniforms and fatigues, leather jackets with military patches on the sleeves, and torn jeans. There were veterans in wheelchairs and on crutches, some blinded and being helped along by friends. Thousands and thousands of Vietnam veterans, coming together for the first time in a decade or more. There was a feeling of reunion, joy. Men clapping each other on the back, laughing, hugging.
Someone with a bullhorn yelled out, “Brothers! Let’s go pay our respects!” and the crowd began to form itself into a parade line.
Frankie and Ethel and Barb joined the line of men.
Someone started to sing “America the Beautiful,” and others joined in, hesitantly, and then boldly. Their voices swelled in song. And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea. Frankie heard her friends and fellow veterans singing beside her. Spectators applauded from the sidewalks; car horns honked.
As they neared the National Mall, the vets fell quiet, all at once, with no one urging the sudden stillness. No more singing. No talking. No clearing of throats, even. They walked together, shoulder to shoulder, these men who’d fought in a hated war and come home to animosity and still didn’t know how to feel about what they’d lived through. Helicopters flew in formation overhead. As far as Frankie could see, the three of them were the only women, although they searched the crowd for nurses or Donut Dollies or other military women with whom they’d served.
At the Mall, an American flag fluttered in the cool breeze above a trio of bright red fire trucks. Supporters filled the grassy area, lined the Reflecting Pool, waited for the parade of veterans: children on their parents’ shoulders, families huddled together, mothers holding framed pictures of their lost sons, dogs barking, babies screaming. Five jets flew overhead; one peeled off from the rest. The missing man formation.
The welcome home these veterans had never received.
Veterans dispersed into the waiting crowd, joined their families, gathered in pods of old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years.
“Come with me,” Barb said, tugging on Frankie’s hand.
Frankie shook her head. “Go, girls. Be with your families. We’ll meet up.”
“You want to be alone?” Ethel said.
Frankie bit back her instinctive response. I am alone. “Go,” she said again, quietly.
Frankie moved forward on her own, through the crowd.
And then, there it was: The Wall. Gleaming black granite rising up from the green grass, the shiny surface alive with reflected movement. Honor Guards stood stationed at intervals along it.
Frankie was overwhelmed by the sight of it. Even from here, she could see the endless etchings on the stone. More than fifty-eight thousand names.
A generation of men.
And eight women. Nurses, all of them.
Names of the fallen.
In the distance, somewhere, someone tapped on a microphone, made a scratching, squealing sound that drew the attention of the crowd.
A man’s voice rang out. “No one can debate the sacrifice and the service of those who fell while serving … Standing before this monument, we see reflected in a dark mirror dimly a chance now to let go of the pain, the grief, the resentment, the bitterness, the guilt…”
As the speech went on, the speaker remarked on the world the veterans had come home to and the shame now felt by Americans who hadn’t welcomed their soldiers home. At last, the speaker said the words that Frankie and her fellow veterans had waited for all these years: “Welcome home and thank you.” The soldier next to Frankie began to cry.
The veterans sang “God Bless America.”
Their family and the visitors joined in.
At the end of the song, with the last notes echoing across the Mall, the speaker said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is now dedicated.”