From a Google Image Search – Pan Macmillan

“There were no women in Vietnam.” When Frankie McGrath comes home from two years of nursing soldiers wounded in Vietnam, she is not thanked for her services. Her father doesn’t add her photo to his wall of heroes. Of course, coming home from Vietnam was nothing like coming home from WWII. America’s role in the war was hotly contested at home. Because Americans felt it was not our war, some of their anti-war emotions were displaced onto our soldiers who had few choices and usually could not avoid being sent off to the war.

Kristin Hannah’s account of the war and the roles of women in it is not a dainty matter. She did not withhold the gore or the emotional turmoil army nurses experienced in Vietnam. Her book may be fictional, but that allows her to include us in the devastation as we identify with the characters in her book. 

Frankie’s much beloved brother joined the Navy but was killed in action almost as soon as he arrived in-country. Helicopters played a huge role in the Vietnam War, both taking soldiers in and out of combat and in and out of medical camps, some of them MASH units, located near the front lines of the battle. Frankie’s decision to join the army to become a nurse was motivated by a desire to please her father, but also it was for Findley, her brother.

The soldiers Frankie treats gave proof of the fragility of human bodies when confronted with weapons of war. Their wounds are terrible. Experience eventually replaced her nerves with skill. She earns a place as an excellent surgical nurse, and she finds friends who will have her back for life.

However, Frankie is young and soldiers flirt, especially helicopter pilots. Frankie falls in love and despairs when she learns her sweetheart is dead. And, what Frankie faces when she gets home does not meet any of her expectations. Finally, after PTSD, addiction, and other heartaches we leave Frankie in Washington, DC at a ceremony dedicating the wall honoring the veterans who died in Vietnam, and a ceremony honoring the nurses and doctors and the soldiers and sailors who didn’t die in Vietnam. 

I have left out many important events from this story because I recommend that you read the book and I don’t want to spoil it. In a meaningful coincidence I finished reading The Women by Kristin Hannah about the women who served in Vietnam on our designated Memorial Day.