Relevant Reads for Progressives

Non-Fiction:  

Title: Healing Wounds: A Vietnam Combat Nurse’s 10-Year Fight to Win Women a Place of Honor in Washington, D.C. | Author: Diane Carlson Evans   | Publication Date: Permuted Press, 5/26/20

     The author was a captain in the Army Nurse Corps, serving one of her 6 years in Vietnam in the Burn Unit of the 36th Evacuation Hospital. She details the gritty, exhausting and often heartbreaking experience of that service.

     Little did she realize then that her mission had just begun. While attending the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial (“The Wall”) in D.C. in 1982, she was disappointed to learn that there was nothing to include and honor females that had served in Vietnam during that war. 

She founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Project and worked tirelessly for ten years to make it come to fruition—raising funds and convincing the public and the government that it was needed. It took seven years of testimony before three federal commissions and two Congressional bills to gain the go-ahead to build it. Dedication was held on November 11, 1993.

     Her story is a testament to hard work, determination and a passion for doing what’s right.  

Fiction:

Title: The Women  | Author: Kristen Hannah | Publication Date: St. Martin’s Press, 2/6/24

     In 1965, twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath follows her brother’s example to serve in the Vietnam War. Once there, she quickly realizes she is in over her head--surrounded by death, mayhem, and others just like her who are also overwhelmed and overworked. Deep friendships forged in fire can be ripped away in an instant. 

     But over time Frankie makes slow and determined progress. She eventually becomes the skilled and confident nurse she’d always hoped to be. She is one of the lucky ones to make it out of Vietnam with her body and mind still intact.

     But in many ways, the worst is yet to come when she gets home to a nation divided by the war and resentful toward the men and women who served there. Most Americans just wanted to forget it had ever happened.

     Though this emotional story highlights just one era of American history, it is a tribute to all women throughout the years who have made great sacrifices in a myriad of ways for our country but have been forgotten.