Sisters of Valor answers these and more questions. Rosaline T. Turner tells the the story of four women’s experience as their husbands are serving in Viet-Nam. We meet Captain Paul Mitchell and his wife Susan, the story’s main character. Paul is a United States Marine Corps company commander. They are from Iowa. We meet Gunnery Sergeant Louis Siconi and Rose. We meet Texanne and her husband Robert the S-1 in Saigon. We meet Magda Spencer from Pennsylvania and her husband Jerry the pilot.
The author has crafted wonderful characters. It is through these characters she does a wonderful job of telling the story. And she is a very good story teller. We feel the pain of a country divided and the impact of antiwar protestors. We see the value of building a support group. We learn how to deal with visiting parents and pressures of parents to move back home. We see some turn to drink to cope. We experience the pressures from family from extended family for financial assistance. We feel the bitterness of extended activity duty due to a person’s military occupational skill being deemed as critical. We share the joy of the birth of a child while marine husband is deployed. We experience the trials of traveling by ourselves with two small children to go home for Christmas and the holidays without our spouse. We feel the terror of the Tet Offensive and the support of our friends during this trying time. We see how some of the women feel guilty that their husband is in a safer job. We share the thrill of talking to a spouse half a world away via a HAM a radio link. We learn of the good and bad of R & R. We feel the loneliness: going out to bar without your spouse, loneliness and falling to temptation while on R & R in Australia. We deal with a potential major illness of a child without our spouse. We survive the craziness of the Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations. We have the dreaded official car drive to our house with the notification of the death of our husband. We experience a husband missing in action. And we have reflection a quarter of a century later.
The book is excellent. It is a very interesting story told by a master story teller. I recommend it for persons’ whose spouse or parents were deployed during the Viet-Nam War. The book’s message is timeless. It would be a good read for a person whose spouse is in the Middle East today.
My father was career military. He was in Viet-Nam in 1963-1964. I was 10 and 11 years old when he was deployed. Reading the book has given me a new appreciation of what my mother went through while he was gone. I am a former US Army officer. The book helped me have a better understanding of what my wife went through during my deployments as well.
To Rosaline T. Turner – thank you for a needed book. I have several friends to whom I have already recommended the book. It will help them as they deal with what their daughters or daughters-in-law are facing today with their husbands in harm’s way.
