“The Women”

by Fran Withrow 04.2024

In 1966, after her brother Finley is killed in the Vietnam War, twenty-year-old Frankie McGrath decides to volunteer as an Army nurse and, despite the disapproval of her parents, heads off to the battlefield.

In “The Women,” Kristin Hannah has written an insightful novel about the challenges women faced during this tragic war. While historical novels abound about World War II, those about the U.S. involvement in this particular conflict are few and far between. I am glad to see Hannah shedding light on this era.

Frankie comes from a sheltered, well-to-do home, so she is green and innocent when she first arrives at the hospital in Vietnam. But very quickly she becomes a first-rate nurse, fearlessly and tirelessly working to help soldiers with horrendous wounds, sitting with those who cannot be saved, and supporting the South Vietnamese civilians who are hurt in the cross-fire. From a helicopter, she watches Agent Orange wipe out vast acres of the jungle. She cradles dying children who have been burned by bombs. There is horror everywhere. 

During all this, she is supported by her two good friends, Barb and Ethel. She even finds a love interest. And despite the atrocities she witnesses, she feels she is doing important work. Finally, after two tours of duty, she is ready to return to the United States.

The second half of the book is perhaps the more important one. There are many books about the horrors of war, but fewer talk about life afterwards. This one does, in detail. Frankie struggles to adjust to life back home and Hannah vividly describes how people respond to Frankie and other military personnel returning to the U.S. from Vietnam. By this point, American involvement in the war is deeply unpopular,, and Frankie is met with derision and disdain. 

Protesters spit on her and cabbies drive right by her. Her parents don’t want her to talk about her devastating experience, and she cannot find relief from her horrendous nightmares. She turns to the VA offices for mental health support, only to discover that these groups are just for men, as there were “no women in that war.”

Lost, Frankie spirals further and further out of control, until she hits rock bottom. It is only then that she finds the help she needs. Afterward, Frankie finds a way to support other women who were traumatized mentally, emotionally, and physically by their time in Vietnam.

I was afraid this would end up being a story where Frankie needs the love of a man to have a happily ever after ending. Fortunately, Hannah does not fall into that trap, but instead uses Frankie’s struggles to explore the wider message of how these servicewomen were traumatized by what they saw, and how little support, appreciation, and acknowledgment for their service they received.

Though the U.S. exited this terrible war that brought so much suffering to our military personnel as well as to the Vietnamese people in 1975, it was not until 1982 that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was erected in Washington D.C. 

There was no Vietnam Women’s Memorial at all until 1993 when one was finally raised, also in Washington D.C. A photo of this beautiful sculpture is included in the back of the book.