The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home
Written and Narrated By: Heath Hardage Lee
Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
Straight-laced women with no-nonsense voices!
When I was in first grade, I had a teacher who absolutely rocked: Little tho’ we were, she felt we SHOULD know what was going on in our country, the sacrifices being made. That meant she brought in the newspaper each day, and every morning she’d read to us about Vietnam’s POWs and MIAs, and the POWs as they came home to be reunited with their families.
AHA! And here, with The League of Wives, I’ve got a chance to revisit my adoration of POWs and MIAs, plus I get to listen to a story about courageous and indomitable women for Women’s History Month. Double Huzzahs all around!
Let’s start with how the Wives were taught, shall we? It turns out they were all given a very precise manual on how to be proper military wives, always there to, quietly, support their military high-flyin’ husbands. How the women behaved, what they said, what they wore, most definitely reflected, whether for good or ill, on their husbands, and it all would bear on their husbands’ careers. They were cautioned to always be 100% behind whatEVER their husbands did, no complaints, demure to the end.
Uhm, THAT got them nowhere when the unthinkable happened to each of the women: They received word that their husbands were either prisoners of war or were missing in action. Lyndon Johnson’s administration did absolutely nothing to help them ensure their husbands were okay, and he offered no comfort, no solace, and extremely limited information. They were STILL supposed to be demure to the end.
Richard Nixon, oh. my. god! comes off as the hero of the day. I dunno, I kinda got that his administration didn’t have any qualms about using the goodwill of the women to suit his own ends, but I guess the women, in turn, used their increasing power to hold sway over him: Their opinions counted to the Press, and good words about their steadfast belief in the man, the leader, did a lot to cement his good standing with the public at large.
There are rePEATed instances of the women being fearless, so this was rather a Stand Up and Cheer book. But I did have a problem with how they viewed EVERYone involved in the peace movements as traitors and Communists. I dunno, as I said, I was about yea high to an ant, so maybe people really WERE black or white way back then. Soooo…. Peaceniks WERE Commie sympathizers? All of them? (Seriously, in my family, I got the sense that my mom wanted all those boys home out of love for them, and not for a wish for the Communists to rule all of Vietnam, for that particular domino to topple…).
Okay, that aside, what I found most fascinating was just how dogged and persistent the women were over YEEEARS of their husbands being imprisoned, with rumors of torture, with affidavits of mistreatment. These women, with little military support and usually against the military code, consistently questioned and tirelessly advocated. They stood up time and time again, never giving up, flying across the globe for meeting after meeting, all while continuing to raise their children, all while continuing to make ends meet. And they suffered grievously, whether it was severe and debilitating depression, or a deepening dependence on alcohol and/or sleep meds to help them turn their racing and anxious thoughts off. Truly, these groups of women (They eventually splintered with some deciding to become more political) were inspiration on wheels.
And now to the Hmmm…. part. The narration. Sometimes an author just should NOT read their own work. I can’t say that’s the case here, exactly, as author Heath Hardage Lee has a definite enthusiasm for the stories, and a definite belief in the utter awesomeness of the women. That said? She dooooes have a rather jarring little accent going whereby the name Joan becomes Jooooooon, and the word Coast becomes Cooooooost. It’s from a part of the country which is obviously not my own, and it also has tones of Valley Girl in it. Still, I’ve heard waaaaay worse, but that said, yup: It is TOTALLY jarring quite frequently.
Whatever; good to great story.
And I must say, I listened to this some time ago, and it stirred up such memories and tears for me that I did something I ALWAYS wanted to do when I was a kid: I went and bought one of the POW bracelets honoring a shot down airman.
I have it now, will treasure it always.
And I do hope my airman made it back to the family who loved him and no doubt fought many a war of words for him…
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