Minor Spoilers 

Kristen Hannah did not disappoint. I am an emotional trainwreck after finishing that emotional rollercoaster. For 50% I was crying, and for the other 50% I was angry. I applaud the author for taking on such a sensitive story. 

The book was split into two parts. We see part one as before/during our MFC’s Vietnam years and part two we follow her years post-Vietnam. The author delved into PTSD, what it was like during this time (which also demonstrated how far we’ve come in mental healthcare) and how Vietnam vets were treated stateside. The author kept it realistic while tackling a return to civilian life after such a bloody conflict as Vietnam was. Francis was not magically fixed when she came back. Even when the readers leave Francis in 1982, after the revealing of the Vietnam War Memorial, she was struggling not to relapse. She had created a space for women nurses, whose service was pushed aside and forgotten, to help them from relapsing and to keep them going when they felt they could not. Helping others helped her move on and stay in the present. 

Vietnam was not the honorable glorious war the was WWI, WWII or Korea. It was not openly spoken about in my childhood. What little I did learn in school took a backseat to Civil Rights, the Space Race, and fall of the Berlin wall, that was condensed in the months before summer break. I had to Google ‘Agent Orange,’ the Tet Offensive and other references throughout this book. I didn’t know women served. I knew women served in WWI and WWII but again, Vietnam is so rarely spoken about, that the true history gets lost. 

Kudos to the author who wrote in the Author’s Note about having this idea since 1997 and realizing that at that time she could not write this story. She lived through this and 1997 was still too close, she needed a maturity she did not have at that time. 

I recommend this book, but I recommend reading it in pieces.