Stories From the ‘60s in America and the War in Vietnam.

 

On a recent extended road trip, we occupied many hours listening to two books that brought back vivid memories of the 1960s and feelings about our experiences with and in Vietnam (1966-68) during what is referred to by Americans as the Vietnam war and by Vietnamese as the American war in their country. The first was the current best-selling novel, The Women by Kristen Hannah.  The other was Dust Child by Vietnamese author, Nguyen Phan Que Mai.

After reading a book, I read reviews online, usually looking at the Goodreads site.  An indication of the popularity of The Women is that it currently has over 60,000 reviews, and over 70% are fives, on a five-star scale.  I read only a sample, and I wished I would have found a review by a woman who actually had an experience as a nurse in operating rooms in a Military hospital in Vietnam during the war- but didn’t see one. 

Dust Child is also well reviewed and liked by reviewers.  It presents a different perspective – taking a look at the often-fraught relationships between Vietnamese women and American soldiers during the war. The novel follows both the perspective of that generation – trying to find a better future – and that of the servicemembers being forced, decades later, to confront their past decisions and betrayals.

We are familiar with both authors, having previously read Nguyen Phan Que Mai’s best-selling novel, The Mountains Sing, a suspenseful and moving saga about a Vietnamese family in North Vietnam torn apart by the various paths its members took during the war and struggling for reconciliation after the war.  I think it’s the best novel I’ve read depicting the war from a Vietnamese perspective, though Le Ly Hayslip’s memoir, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, is equally riveting and based on her real-life experiences during the war and afterward in the US.  We have read several of Hannah’s novels, - notably one of them, The Great Alone, also has echoes of the effects of the Vietnam war on the human psyche, featuring a returned POW who was prone to bouts of anger (PTSD?) and moves his family to a remote part of Alaska.

The Women brings a well-deserved focus to the contributions of women, specifically military nurses, in Vietnam during the war.  The story follows a young woman, 21-year-old Frankie who misses her brother after he heads off to Vietnam with the navy and is challenged by the notion that “women can be heroes, too”.  Her father and mother don’t agree.  She enlists with the Army since that is the only branch that will get her over there quickly.  Part one is full of war and all the chaos and human tragedy that it entails, especially in the operating room where Frankie is assigned to an evac hospital at Pleiku, in the central highlands near much intense combat.

According to a Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation statement, approximately 10,000 American military women were stationed in Vietnam during the war, and we know from experience that numerous other women served as physicians, social workers and medical personnel, including my wife, Judy, a nurse.   The churches in the US sent many nurses to work in the Vietnam Christian Service program with which we worked.  One of them, Gloria Anne Redlin, died from gunshots fired by South Vietnamese soldiers in a dreadful fog of war incident at a checkpoint, an accident of war that should not have happened. (see my blog post August, 2023)

Kristen Hanna has a tendency to be overly dramatic, and not being a nurse herself, got a few aspects of RN training and nursing wrong (according to my nurse wife).  Hannah was born in 1960, so obviously doesn’t have the visceral lived experience of what it was like in the US or in Vietnam during the timeframe of the novel, though she did good research and read a lot of books by people who did.  

The story of Frankie, both in-country as a nurse and during the difficult re-entry back home after two terms of service includes multiple heartbreaking experiences.  Just when you think something good might happen, it doesn’t. The tragedies just keep piling up.  We read many instances of gapping wounds, triage of wounded soldiers, rocket attacks, as well as romantic encounters (she chose badly each time), about wanting her father’s approval (It was hard to listen to her father disrespect her time and time again) and about how cold her mother was. We read about her drunken pill popping over and over – but the point is to show how difficult to was to return to the US and the awful reception veterans got when they came back home many with PTSD. And how hard it was for her (and them) to get the help they needed.

Personal memories contradict some of the authors descriptions.  For example, when Frankie arrives at Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon as a frightened young novice, she sees pedicyclo drivers and children playing in the street as she steps off the plane.  I can assure you that would not have been seen in that heavily guarded fortress like military base.  And she describes flying in and out of locations like Tan Son Nhut, or Pleiku, and other locations– every time with the pop – pop – pop of rifle fire from Vietcong soldiers on the ground.  I flew many times on planes and helicopters out of and into those same towns and cities, even Dak To near the Ho Chi Minh trail, during my stint as program director of Vietnam Christian Service, and never once had that experience.  However, I am sure it was very usual that helicopters were fired on in zones of live combat.  Just no need to dramatize and depict every moment as full of danger.

The ”women” angle of the story has to do with the friendships Frankie made with co-workers Ethel and Barb – supporting relationships to last a lifetime as they each know what the other has lived through.  When she sees the futility of the war and joins the anti-war protests she has these sisters as soul mates.  She tries to look for support elsewhere (VA and others) but she gets turned away for being a woman and not having actually been in combat.  In the end she finds a new purpose and the story takes a somewhat surprising turn toward what she resolves to do and where she ends up living (one of my favorite places).

Of course, this story is told from an American nurse’s experience and perspective, but I would prefer to have had the Vietnamese people humanized and personalized a bit more.  Not one Vietnamese person was given a name, but there is an emotional encounter with an orphan that impacted Frankie. 

In contrast Dust Child tells a story from the point-of-view of three main Vietnamese characters, alternating between two periods in Vietnam: the war years and the present day. In 1969, sisters Trang and Quynh migrate to Saigon from their village and work "bar girls" in Saigon, hoping to earn money to support their poor, ailing parents.

Through the sister’s stories, the novel details how a sex worker industry sprang up around the U.S. military presence, one that easily coaxed young women into its clutches. Jumping to modern-day Vietnam, the novel simultaneously tells the story of Phong, a 40-something Amerasian who is desperate to find his American father in order to give his wife and children a better life in the United States.  He knows he is Amerasian because he is black, but the US embassy will not grant him a visa.

It is estimated that American soldiers left behind more than 20,000 of their children — born to Vietnamese women who lived as laborers or sex workers near military bases. Some veterans came back for their kids, but most did not.   These children, scorned and living on the margins of society are called Amerasians, or worse, cast aside and labeled in Vietnamese "the dust of life."  (Book review By Tom Horgen Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 24, 2023)

These are people whose circumstances have forced them to live and survive from one fragile moment to the next. Thrown into the mix is another protagonist, Dan, a sixtyish white American veteran who's recently traveled back to Vietnam to find out what happened to his lover and their child. 

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai works wonders taking readers deep inside this under covered part of the war's history.

I recommend both books.  I would give The Women four stars and Dust Child five!

Personal Note:

Judy and I experienced the Vietnam war up close and actively participated in the tumultuous sixties.  So, now having lived well into the 21^st century, I am reflecting on how there is a sense in which the volatile and polarized America in which we currently live can find its roots and be tracked back to the conflicted and polarized 1960s.  Issues of race, political violence, abortion, anti-war protests, and inequality are still being worked out today and so much needs to be done. I found inspiration then in the anti-war, civil rights and environmental movements, in young people engaged in service, in the slow progress towards more gender and income equality, in this fragile political system we have in America, and I still feel that hope today, even in this uncertain time.