The Women revisited

Kristen Hannah’s The Women has been verified by people, whose judgement in books I trust, as a book worth reading! Yes, so now I plan to read it and possibly suggest it as a book for my book club next month.

Above is a picture of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial on The National Mall in Washington, D. C. It is the only memorial dedicated to military women on the Mall.

A women named Diane Carlson Evans spearheaded a decade long effort to establish this monument. She was an Army Corps Nurse who served in Vietnam from 1966 to 1972. Evans faced many roadblocks including the notion that, since women did not face combat, they shouldn’t be honored. Additionally, no entity wanted to pay for a memorial so Evans and other project volunteers went on 60 Minutes to explain their efforts. Because of the television appearance, money poured in from around the country, and the monument was finally dedicated on November 11, 1993.

During the Vietnam War, 265,000 military and civilian women served, incuding between 10,000 and 11,000 nurses who were stationed on the ground. Their sacrifices and traumas were as real as the combat troops were, as you will discover when reading The Women. Many thanks to Kristin Hannah for a story well-written about often over-looked heroes.