TUESDAY, DECEMBER10,2024 -BOOK REVIEW CONTINUED

Yesterday, I started a book review of Kristen Hannah's The Women. It is the story of a young woman (20 years old) who signed up to go to Vietnam as a nurse.

Apology - yesterday I called the book "Sisters" - but I was wrong!!!)

*****

The war in Vietnam escalated. It was a challenging task to tell loyal South Vietnamese from North Vietnamese.  The Americans had serious injuries.  Frankie McGraft, as a surgical nurse, saw it all.  Limbs are blown off, abdominal wou. She saw soldiers barely alive and tried to save their lives and those who were dead or would soon be dead.  

The officers club was the place for the nurses, doctors, and commanders to escape the war.  There was plenty of alcohol and other drugs.  Heroin, marijuana, uppers, downers, and more were available.  

Frankie bonded with the two nurses in the hut that was “home.”  She upped for a second year as she felt she was making a difference by serving the wounded.  

A while before her tenure was over, she had R&R in Hawaii.  It was the same time as her boyfriend, and there she lost her heart and virginity to him.  She returned home, and he stayed, and the report was that he was dead.

Arriving home, her father ignored her.  War was not a place for women.  He couldn’t and wouldn’t put her pictures on his hero wall.  The protests at home were growing.  Lyndon Johnson vowed not to run for a second term. Richard Nixon was elected, and he kept sending men to fight communism in Vietnam.  The protesters asked tough questions like “Why are we here?”  

In the novel, Frankie gets spat upon by protesters, given obscene finger signs, and derided.  When she went to get mental health at the Veterans Administration clinic, she was turned away with the statement, “There were no women in Vietnam.”  

She takes a nursing job and gets fired; she takes another job and gets drunk and incompetent on the job.  She takes more pills (“Mother’s Little Helpers” - a song about drugs by the Rolling Stones).  She gets angry and has mood swings.  She gets pregnant and loses the baby - and loses the man just before they are to be married.

*****

The second half of the book tackles the thorny question of PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  She couldn’t function.  She had nightmares.  At her parent’s Fourth of July party, a firecracker down the street became an assault on her compound in Vietnam, and she could not cope.  She screams and falls on the floor to avoid the incoming attack (which wasn’t)

Eventually, she gets appropriate rehab - and goes on a 12-step program (like an Alcoholics Anonymous program).  

*****

Karen continues.

War is hell is a phrase that has been around for ages.  War has people (primarily young, healthy men) developing a disability or dying.  Vietnam divided our country.  Why are we there?

N🙏🏼ow, over 50 years later, we say, “Thank you for your service” to Vietnam veterans - and all veterans), but it wasn’t always that way.  Protesters called the nurse “a baby killer.”  Some Americans bombed friendly villages.  Many came home broken in both body and spirit.

Frankie comes home to find out the man she loved is married and still professes to love her. Men are generally portrayed as villains.  He lied to her - just to get sex with her.   (And, he hadn’t died, but had been taken prisoner in the “Hanoi Hilton”) 

*****

I don’t know how Vietnam could have been different - other than not going to war.  But we’ve also gone to war in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan, And yet, there still is hatred and fighting all over the globe.  

From Matthew 24:6-7  You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 

An analysis says, “The United States has been at war for 222 out of the last 239 years.  Sure, warfare might be different.  A rocket can take out just the commander of the opposing forces and not the whole troop.  But death is still death.  “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

Matthew 5:38+: “You know you have been taught, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I tell you not to try to get even with someone who has done something to you. When someone slaps your right cheek, turn and let that person slap your other cheek. If someone sues you for your shirt, also give up your coat. If a soldier forces you to carry his pack one kilometer, carry it two kilometers.

There was a statement in the 1960s—“Better Red than Dead.” (Where “red” meant communism.) However, communism has primarily failed in the USSR, dissolving into individual states (although Russia seems to be the new version of communism - still a dictatorship).  

*****

Final analysis

I do recommend “The Women” for you to read.  The reality of war, the reality of PTSD, and the reality of drug and alcohol addiction still exist.  Why can’t we learn to love?  

LOVE WILL WIN - even if only in our hearts and minds

LOVE WILL TRANSFORM US - If I need to turn the other cheek, let it be.

Karen Anne White, December 10, 2024