The Women by Kristin Hannah

 

After Frances's (Frankie) brother is killed in Vietnam, she is determined to go there and finish what he started.  Her family was full of military men and she decided that if all that was left was a woman, a woman would go.  Frankie became a nurse and was in Vietnam in surgical theatres at age twenty-one.  She was shocked at the wounds and the constant death, the napalm burns and the amputations.  By the time she came home two years later, her memory was full of scenes she couldn't forget.

One of the worst was the paper that her fiance's father gave her when she went to visit him after her return.  Rye was supposed to be coming home twenty-three days after her but instead his father handed her the telegram that announced his death in a helicopter that was shot down.  Along with the nightmares and memories, this was too much for Frankie and she entered a spin that lasted for years.  By the time she found help, she was addicted to both pills and alcohol.

As she recovered from addiction, she was told she had to find a new passion.  She found it in helping other women who had been to Vietnam.  Many people believed no women had been there but there were nurses, Red Cross volunteers, administrative staff and in all, over ten thousand women are estimated to have been in Vietnam during the war.  

This was my first Kristin Hannah book.  I can tell that much research went into this and I also didn't realize how many women served in Vietnam.  I was in high school during the war and remember the march on Washington.  My first year in college I remember the night of the draft lottery where numbers were drawn and young men discovered if they would be drafted or not.  I remember how poorly our soldiers were treated upon their return and how controversial the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. was.  Along with the war, Hannah also explores the romantic lives of Frankie and her best friends, both of whom returned before she did.  This book is recommended for readers of historical and women's fiction.