She felt the start of tears, felt them on her face as she stood there, surrounded by her fellow Vietnam veterans, the wall of black granite blurring behind them.
Jamie moved toward her, stumbled; she reached out to steady him. “I’ve got you,” she said, her words echoing his from long ago. There was so much to say to him, words she’d gathered and stored in her memories, dreamed of saying, but there would be time for that, time for them. Today, just being here, holding his hand, was enough. More than enough.
Miraculous.
After all these years, so much pain and regret and loss, they were here, she and Jamie and thousands of others. Battered and limping and in wheelchairs, some of them, but still here. All of us. Together again. In a group, at a wall that held the names of the fallen.
Together.
Survivors, all.
They’d been silenced, forgotten for too long, especially the women.
Remembering you got me through.
And there it was: remembrance mattered. She knew that now; there was no looking away from war or from the past, no soldiering on through pain.
Somehow Frankie would find a way to tell the country about her sisters—the women with whom she’d served. For the nurses who had died, for their children, for the women who would follow in the years to come.
It started here. Now. By speaking up, standing in the sunlight, coming together, demanding honesty and truth. Taking pride.
The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn’t quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words.
We were there.
Vietnam Women’s Memorial, Washington, D.C. ? 1993, Eastern National, Glenna Goodacre, Sculptor. Photo Credit: Greg Staley.
Author’s Note
This book has been a true labor of love, years in the making. I first conceived of it in 1997, but as a young writer, I wasn’t ready to tackle such an important and complex subject. I didn’t feel I had the skill or the maturity to achieve my vision. It has taken me decades to circle back to the Vietnam War era.
I was young, in elementary or middle school, for the majority of the war, but I remember it vividly: the protests, the darkening tone of the nightly news, the arc of the story told by the media, more and more young men dying, and most of all, how the veterans—many of them my friends’ fathers—were treated when they came home. All of it made a lasting impression.
Reading the firsthand accounts of the women who served in Vietnam was incredibly inspiring. I was also saddened to realize that these women’s heroic stories have too often been forgotten or overlooked.
Not enough has been made or recorded or remembered about their service. It is even difficult to get certain agreed-upon numbers of the women who served in Vietnam. According to the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation statement, approximately 10,000 American military women were stationed in Vietnam during the war. Most were nurses in the Army, Air Force, and Navy, but women also served as physicians and medical personnel, and in air traffic control and military intelligence. Civilian women also served in Vietnam as news correspondents and workers for the Red Cross, Donut Dollies, the USO, Special Services, the American Friends Service Committee, Catholic Relief Services, and other humanitarian organizations.
Talking to these remarkable women, listening to their stories, and reading their firsthand accounts of both being in Vietnam during the war and their treatment upon coming home to the United States has been a revelation. Many of the women keenly remembered being told often that there “were no women in Vietnam.” I am honored to tell this story.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible if not for the help, guidance, honesty, and support of Captain Diane Carlson Evans, a former Army nurse who served in Vietnam. As the founder of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation, she has dedicated much of her postwar life to remembering her sister-veterans who served in the war. Her own story, told in Healing Wounds, written with Bob Welch, is a stunning and revelatory look at how she saw her wartime experiences, and was a great help in writing this novel. My gratitude is boundless, Diane. You are truly an inspiration.
I’d also like to thank retired Army Colonel Douglas Moore, Dust Off helicopter pilot and recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, awarded to him for actions during the Vietnam War. Doug flew 1,847 combat missions, evacuated nearly 3,000 wounded, and was inducted into the Dust Off Hall of Fame in 2004. Thank you for taking the time to read and critique an early draft of The Women, and for answering an endless series of follow-up questions.
Thanks to Debby Alexander Moore, Army Special Services recreation director, Vietnam 1968–70, for her help and recollections.
Thanks to Dr. Beth Parks, who served as an Army operating room nurse at the Seventh Surgical (MASH) and Twelfth Evacuation Hospitals at Cu Chi, Vietnam, in 1966–67. Dr. Parks is now a retired professor and an adventurer, writer, and photographer. She read the manuscript in record time, shared her personal photographs and memories, and added her experience and expertise throughout. I am eternally grateful for her help.
For those who would like to read more about the remarkable women who served in Vietnam and about their return from the war, I can recommend a few outstanding resource books:
Healing Wounds, Diane Carlson Evans, with Bob Welch, Permuted Press, 2020; American Daughter Gone to War, Winnie Smith, William Morrow, 1992; Home Before Morning, Lynda Van Devanter, University of Massachusetts Press, 2001 (originally published 1983); Women in Vietnam: The Oral History, Ron Steinman, TV Books, 2000; A Piece of My Heart, Keith Walker, Presidio Press, 1986.
See also: After the Hero’s Welcome, Dorothy H. McDaniel, WND Books, 2014; The League of Wives, Heath Hardage Lee, St. Martin’s Press, 2019; In Love and War, Jim and Sybil Stockdale, Naval Institute Press, 1990; and The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Andrew E. Hunt, New York University Press, 1999.
In writing this novel, I have tried to be as historically accurate as possible. Originally I created fictional towns and evacuation hospitals to give myself the greatest possible fictional latitude in telling this story, but my Vietnam veteran readers felt strongly that I should name the places accurately. Therefore, the hospitals and towns mentioned in the novel are all real; the logistics and descriptions and timeline in a few places have been altered to support my narrative. Any errors or mistakes are, of course, my own.
I’d also like to thank Jackie Dolat for her candid remembrances of Alcoholics Anonymous and rehab programs in Southern California in the seventies.