I have never actually read any Kristin Hannah before but this was the selection for the month for a book club I am in – I know The Nightingale was very popular at one point but I think I just hit the point of wondering how many more World War II novels we needed right around the time it came out? But I also get the the appeal – because World War II, at least from an American perspective, is one that is easy to grapple with (until you get to the very end of the Pacific front and the bomb) – there were clear good guys and bad guys, and we were on the right side. Korea was the forgotten war, and Vietnam is the one we associate with huge culture shifts and protests. Given the subject matter of Army nurses in Vietnam, I was definitely more interested in this than other Hannah novels I have seen.
There were quite a few plot points that were a bit obvious/predictable; there was one plot point I predicted, then thought it wasn’t going to happen but it was brought back much later (and I kind of wish I had remained wrong), and despite hitting the major points many readers will likely expect from a war story or historical fiction or women’s fiction, something about this novel just hit me harder than normal, and I am trying to figure it out.
Since this was about an Army combat nurse, this did lead me into a Wikipedia rabbit hole of US casualty numbers by war. I think it’s common knowledge that it is only a very recent development for combat deaths to outnumber other deaths in war – the medical care and knowledge simply wasn’t there before so when you look at the Revolution or Civil War, you had huge death tolls due to diseases etc. World War II was the first one where there were more combat deaths than “other deaths.” World War I they were closer to equal but still more dead from other – however, World War I was the first one where the number of recorded wounded was higher than the total deceased. Now, I think there are likely two factors at play on this one – I don’t know how accurate or good pre-20th century record keeping was when it came to tracking wounded vs dead, and of course, medical advances – combat wounds that would have killed before could now be treated.
I have completed two deployments to Iraq and one to Afghanistan but that was a very different experience to Vietnam. I mean, my experience of Iraq is very different from the experience of someone that served there at an earlier point in time when we were first getting into country or from someone that was in a hot spot or that was going on regular patrols outside the wire (I did do convoys to move equipment and supplies between bases but I was always on large bases, not small outposts, always in large vehicles etc). I looked more deeply into the Vietnam numbers since the date range for the conflict was broad but the fighting was really focused on a more condensed number of years. There were 3 years in a row with more than 10K deaths in Vietnam, 5 with more than 6. The total killed in Iraq and Afghanistan is close to that 6,000 for the entire time there. There are definitely units and regions that can more closely relate to what troops experienced in Vietnam, but on the larger scale, it was a very different experience.
The other big difference we of course all know about is the reaction – more Americans were paying attention to Vietnam – some of it likely due to the death toll, much of it to the draft and the fact that it could technically impact anyone (even though there were loopholes if families had the money). Too many conflated being against the war with being against the troops, leading to traumatized young veterans returning to hate and blame. For Iraq and Afghanistan, we didn’t have that experience. We had a mix of “support the troops” and people barely even realizing we were still over there because without the draft (and being an all volunteer force is a good thing), the wars and deployments weren’t really impacting the whole of the US but only a small subset.
So anyway, back to the novel – after her brother is sent to Vietnam as a Navy officer, Frankie throws herself into her nursing studies and joins the Army so she can join her brother overseas. She is thrust into the frontlines which are very different from what she expected based on the news coverage but eventually finds her confidence and her purpose there as well as intense friendships and bonds. And then she comes home to a country that is anti-military, and even within military circles and support systems, they simply ignore women’s contributions. There is very little understanding of PTSD, and the resources are focused on men, not the forgotten and invisible women. Frankie struggles with her memories but is also lost in a world that is both the same as before she left and different. She can’t find the same sense of purpose outside of the military that she had in it (I wasn’t even doing anything like nursing but found this part very relatable); her credentials and experience mean nothing to the civilian world, and no one wants to hear about it.
I’d definitely recommend this one – I enjoyed the focus on the nurses (I do wish Frankie’s best friends had been fleshed out more, and especially wanted more from Barb) and this part of history. I feel like I have read a little bit about Vietnam before but it’s also one where my view of it is very shaped by movies (and music). I think most will find this interesting, maybe a bit predictable though still powerful but I also think my reaction was likely intensified by my own experiences and comparing how different things were between 1967 and 2007 onward, and the meaning of service.
ETA: just been thinking – so getting more into the book in general, despite the fact that it caused a strong reaction from me, there are definitely flaws/things I wish had been handled differently. I think it could have been interesting if this was a split POV book and we got perspectives from Ethel and Barb to show different ways women reacted; now there would be challenges with that, too, because Barb is a Black woman which both makes me want to hear her perspective more but also think it likely should be coming from a different writer. Barb was used to give us a glimpse into race but we didn’t dive very deep into it, and when it came down to it, Frankie’s friends but especially Barb dropped everything quite a few times to come to Frankie’s aide so that obviously starts getting close to tropes about Black side kick characters. There were a few choices in the plot alluded to above that also lean a bit more into the melodrama a bit. Generally, as a reader, I have always hated reading about competent characters having issues where they upend and destroy their lives so some of those parts were tough for me to get through but the point was to show her struggles with integrating back into society, PTSD etc so it was necessary for the story being told.
