Charlie Company's Journey Home: The Forgotten Impact on the Wives of Vietnam Veterans

by Andrew Wiest

Overview

The Boys of '67 and the War They Left Behind

The human experience of the Vietnam War is almost impossible to grasp—the camaraderie, the fear, the smell, the pain. Men were transformed into soldiers, and then into warriors.

These warriors had wives who loved them and shared in their transformations. Some marriages were strengthened, while for others there was all too often a dark side, leaving men and their families emotionally and spiritually battered for years to come.

Focusing in on just one company's experience of war and its eventual homecoming, Andrew Wiest shines a light on the shared experience of combat and both the darkness and resiliency of war's aftermath.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472827494
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	10/23/2018
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Dr Andrew Wiest is Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi and is also the founding director of the Center for the Study of War and Society. Specializing in the study of World War I and Vietnam, he has served as a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Warfighting Strategy in the United States Air Force Air War College. Since 1992 Dr Wiest has been active in international education, developing the award-winning Vietnam Study Abroad Program.

Wiest's titles include Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN (New York University), which won the Society for Military History's Distinguished Book Award; America and the Vietnam War (Routledge); Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land (Osprey); Passchendaele and the Royal Navy (Greenwood Press); and The Boys of '67 (Osprey). Additionally Dr Wiest has appeared in and consulted on several historical documentaries for the History Channel, Granada Television, PBS, the BBC and for Lucasfilm. Wiest lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with his wife Jill and their three children Abigail, Luke and Wyatt.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Women of Charlie Company
Chapter 2: Marriage and Training
Chapter 3: Wartime
Chapter 4: Days of Terror
Chapter 5: Loss
Chapter 6: War's End and Homecoming
Chapter 7: Living with Vietnam
Conclusion
Afterword
Cast of Characters

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2018
Wiest, a history professor at University of Southern Mississippi, offers something rare in the literary canon of the Vietnam War: an in-depth look at the families—primarily the wives—of the company of U.S. Army 9th Infantry division men he chronicled in The Boys of ’67 (2012). For that book, Wiest spent three years interviewing nearly 100 officers and enlistees of Charlie Company and their significant others. He conducted additional interviews with the soldiers’ wives for the new book and made use of eight “major letter collections.” Through oral histories and his own scene-setting, Wiest tells of the experiences of college students, young housewives and mothers, and working women before, during, and after their husbands’ service in Vietnam. Among the women are Kaye French, who recalls changing her wedding date to accommodate her husband’s training and finding out she was pregnant just after he shipped out; Mary Ann Simon, who endured an agonizing wait for updates after her future husband was shot in Vietnam; and Sue Reed, whose marriage foundered partly due to her husband’s wartime experiences. Wiest writes well and with empathy for what the women went through. This is a novel look at the Vietnam War’s legacy that speaks to the experiences of military families today. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

A painful yet impressive account of the effects of war on the families left behind.” —Kirkus

“This is a serious book and as such deserves a dedicated effort to fully understand and absorb.” —IPMS/USA

“This book chronicles the Vietnam War thought the perspectives and experiences of the families and loved ones left behind.” —Military Heritage

“[The wives'] reminiscences unfold, along with Wiest's perspectives, in an oral-history style. “When I spoke to these women, they had been alone for so long and their experiences had been invisible for so long, that they were sure they didn't have a story to tell.... They do. Collecting their and their husbands' voices is commendable.” —Military Times

“This book is poignant, well-written and researched, and at time both uplifting and depressing. It is not an easy read, but it's a fascinating one.” —Army Magazine

“Reading Charlie Company's Journey Home might provide an eye-opening lesson for the average American. Today's society often overlooks or takes its all-volunteer armed forces for granted.In comparison, the men of Charlie Company were almost entirely made up of draftees whose lives were involuntarily disrupted by military service. The difference in self-sacrifice is incalculable and Wiest shows it.” —VVA Veteran

“Wiest writes well and with empathy for what the women went through. This is a novel look at the Vietnam War's legacy that speaks to the experiences of military families today.” —Publishers Weekly

“Wiest has written an important work about veterans and their courageous spouses, preserving their stories for us to analyze and reflect upon.” —Washington Independent Review of Books

“Wiest provides a compassionate look at how the conflict impacted these individuals to the present day. Although specific to this Vietnam experience, readers will appreciate the common threads that run through the sacrifices of military duty during conflict ... Although there are plenty of other works that discuss the home front, the uniqueness here lies in the cohesive yet distinctive experiences of the Charlie Company itself, offering a deeper understanding of the soldiers through the actions of their wives during their year away ... Historians, military spouses, and those impacted by Vietnam will find this work sensitive, familiar, and uplifting.” —Library Journal

“Written with such compelling narratives, you immerse instantly into one family after another. Unlike tales of war that end with a peace treaty, these battles continue decades later with haunting re-occurrence. The victories are for those that overcome.” —Seattle Book Review

“This is a book for the casualties and survivors of that war-including the men, women, and children who loved them.” —Clarion-Ledger / Hattiesburg American

From the Publisher

★ 2018-07-24

A focused Vietnam War-era history of the "wives and families…left behind for war."

The Boys of '67, the author's intimate history of an infantry company in Vietnam, was well-received when it was published in 2012, and it became the basis for the National Geographic special Brothers in War. Here, Wiest (History/Univ. of Southern Mississippi; Vietnam: A View from the Front Lines, 2013, etc.) revisits the material, adding interviews and covering similar ground, this time from the perspectives of the soldiers' wives and families. The result is a moving work as stirring as its predecessor. The format jumps back and forth among two dozen wives across seven chapters; the recollections begin with their childhoods and continue through their present lives. The 1966 draft took men, married or not, soon after they reached 18. Men in college were exempt, so the resulting Army was not a cross-section of the population, and readers will be unnerved at the impoverished backgrounds of so many. A private's pay gave many their first taste of financial security. Women married younger in those days, and many couples were courting when the draft notice arrived. Consequently, there were hasty marriages, and a surprising number of men left for Vietnam with their wives pregnant or with small children. The women had a miserable time. Often fresh out of high school, they struggled alone but with remarkable success to make a home, earn a living, and care for an infant, always aware that their husbands were in mortal danger. Normal life sometimes resumed after their service, but more often than not, the men were emotionally damaged, withdrawn, or abusive. Some marriages recovered, but others didn't, and it's quite possible that the author has omitted the worst cases.

A painful yet impressive account of the effects of war on the families left behind.

Kirkus Reviews