《女人》给了我一个关于越南战争的新视角 | 盖茨书单

在我15岁的一天，我的一位老师带我参加了第一次反越战抗议活动。

我的老师也因此惹了点麻烦，但我还是很感谢他能带我们去。那场战争也是20世纪60年代的核心事件。那种仿佛（而且最终确实是）身处历史创造进程中的经历现在想来仍觉得不可思议，我仍记得当时感觉自己只是沧海一粟。

在读克里斯汀·汉娜（Kristin Hannah）的《女人（The Women）》时，我经常想起这段经历。这本出色的小说讲述了弗兰基·麦格拉斯（Frankie McGrath）的故事，她是一名军队护士，在越南前线服役两次后回到了因抗议和反战情绪而动荡的国家。

在阅读《女人》之前，我并不熟悉克里斯汀·汉娜，尽管她写的很多书都取得了相当不错的成绩（这本书已经非常畅销了）。我的姐夫约翰曾在越南服役两次，他认为这本书非常棒，当他知道我要去那度假时，就向我推荐了这本书。实际上，我是在越南岘港（Da Nang）读的这本书，那里也是1965年美军首次登陆的地方。

尽管我已经阅读和观看了很多关于越南战争的资料，《女人》仍使我从一个新的角度去思考这场战争。我之前并不知道许多女性在战争中扮演了关键角色，前线护士们拯救无数生命的事迹也让我大开眼界、深受启发。

书的开头，弗兰基被她朋友的一句女性也能成为英雄打动，因此萌生了参军的念头。她是看着父亲办公室里的退伍军人墙长大的，墙上挂着所有服过役的男性家庭成员的肖像。汉娜写道：“为什么弗兰基从来没有想过，一个女孩，一个女人，可以因为做了一些英雄事迹或重要的事情而在父亲办公室的墙上占据一席之地？一个女人甚至可以发明或发现什么，或者成为战场上的护士，可以实实在在地拯救生命？”

这本书清楚地表明，弗兰基和她的同事们是真正的英雄，但她们在越南的存在却大多被忽视和遗忘，甚至是那些曾与她们一起服役的人都不会记得。其中一个场景尤其令人难忘：从战争中归来后，她曾去当地退伍军人医院寻求心理健康治疗，很明显她患有创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）需要帮助。但医院却以她是女性、不可能是退伍军人为由，将她赶了出来。

在书中，弗兰基一次又一次地从她的老战友那里听到“越南没有女性”的说法，他们的意思是没有女性在前线作战。但正如书中所述，如果你在前线附近从事医疗工作，就会经历战争带来的每一点（精神）创伤。弗兰基治疗了数百名死亡或遭受改变人生的重伤患者，每当她所在的基地受到攻击时，她就需要被迫躲藏。有时候，她甚至觉得自己快要死了。她在海外的时光是严酷和恐怖的，我无法想象对那些真实的女性越战退伍军人来说，她们的经历被忽视是多么令人心碎。

当然，这是一本小说，而不是历史书。但作者花了大量时间与女性越战退伍军人交流她们的经历，她的研究深度在写作中体现得淋漓尽致。

我对书中弗兰基逐渐意识到美国政府曾在战争中撒谎的情节尤其感兴趣。当她刚到越南时，她相信美国正在赢得战争。随着时间的推移，她开始注意到来自军方领导层的乐观信息与她在实地经历的情况不符。在一天特别惨烈的战斗之后，弗兰基的朋友兼同事芭芭拉（Barb）指出，“《星条旗报（Stars and Stripes）》昨天报导说没有美国人伤亡，可单单在一号手术室就有七人死亡”。

我记得在越战期间，我和我的父母一起看晚间新闻，听到的消息是北越士兵的死亡人数远远超过美国士兵。政府告诉我们，伤亡人数是衡量胜负的标准，按照这个标准，我们正在赢得战争。后来，我们发现这些数字被歪曲了。而且，死亡总数甚至不是正确的衡量标准，因为北越人是在为他们的生存而战。他们可以随意征召的男性士兵数量远远超出了我们所能应对的范围（如果你想了解更多关于这方面的信息，我强烈推荐阅读H.R. McMaster的《玩忽职守（Dereliction of Duty）》一书）。

《女人》是一个重要的提醒——没有人比那些勇敢在海外服役的男女更易受这些谎言的影响。他们被派往一场打不赢的冲突的前线，但当他们回到家乡时，这个国家已经开始反对这场战争、反对这些在战争中服役的人们。弗兰基反思道：“嬉皮士和抗议者的世界离我们很远很远，与死在这里的人毫无关系。但实际上是有关系的，抗议活动让他们觉得自己的牺牲毫无意义，或者更糟的是，让他们觉得自己在做错事。”

我其实宁愿相信，这种情况现在已经有所改变。尽管历史对这场战争本身的评价并不友好，但时过境迁，大多数人都承认越战中的个人英雄主义。我们也应为那些人的英雄事迹感到自豪。这也是为什么我很高兴看到像《女人》这样的书畅销的原因之一。这本书以优美的文笔向一群退伍军人致敬，她们所做出的巨大牺牲值得更多的赞赏。

When I was 15 years old, one of my teachers took me to my first Vietnam War protest.

My teacher ended up getting in a bit of trouble for it, but I’m thankful he took us. The war was such a centerpiece of what was going on in the 1960s. It was incredible to experience what seemed like (and turned out to be) history in the making. I remember feeling like I was a very small part of something big.

I thought about that experience a lot while I was reading The Women by Kristin Hannah. This terrific novel tells the story of Frankie McGrath, an army nurse who serves two tours on the frontlines in Vietnam before returning home to a country rocked by protest and anti-war sentiment.

I wasn’t familiar with Kristin Hannah before reading The Women, even though she’s written a number of books that have done quite well (and this one is already a huge hit). My brother-in-law John—who served two tours in Vietnam and found the book fantastic—recommended it to me when he found out I was headed there for vacation. I actually read the book in Da Nang, which was where U.S. troops first landed back in 1965.

Although I’ve read and watched a lot about the war in Vietnam, The Women made me think about it in a new light. I didn’t know about the critical role so many women played, and it was both eye-opening and inspiring to learn more about the frontline nurses who saved countless lives.

At the beginning of the book, Frankie is inspired to enlist in the army after a friend suggests that women can also be heroes. She grew up looking at her father’s wall of veterans in his office, where portraits hung of all the male family members who had served. Hannah writes, “Why had it never occurred to Frankie that a girl, a woman, could have a place on her father’s office wall for doing something heroic or important, that a woman could invent something or discover something or be a nurse on the battlefield, could literally save lives?”

The book makes it clear that Frankie and her colleagues are true heroes—but their presence in Vietnam is largely ignored and forgotten, even by those who served with them. In one particularly memorable scene after she returns from war, Frankie seeks mental health treatment at her local VA hospital. It’s clear that she is suffering from PTSD and needs help. But the hospital turns her away because she is a woman and, therefore, couldn’t possibly be a veteran.

Frankie hears the phrase “there weren’t women in Vietnam” from her fellow veterans over and over in the book. What they mean is that women weren’t on the frontlines. But as the book makes clear, if you’re in a medical role near the war front, you experience every bit of the trauma of war. Frankie treats hundreds of people who died or suffered life-changing wounds. She is forced to hunker down whenever the base she works on is under attack. There are moments when she thinks she is going to die. Her time overseas is grim and horrifying, and I can’t imagine how devastating it must have been for real female Vietnam veterans to have their experiences discounted after coming home.

This is a novel, of course, and not a history book. But the author spent a lot of time talking to female Vietnam veterans about their experiences, and the depth of her research comes through in the writing.

I was especially interested to read about Frankie’s slow revelation that the U.S. government has been lying about the war. When she first arrives in Vietnam, she believes that the U.S. is winning the war. Over time, she begins to notice that the upbeat message coming from the military leadership doesn’t match with what she’s experiencing on the ground. After one particularly gruesome day of fighting, Frankie’s friend and coworker Barb notes that “the Stars and Stripes reported no American casualties yesterday. Seven men died in OR One alone.”

I remember watching the nightly news with my parents during the war and hearing that way more North Vietnamese soldiers had died than American soldiers. The government told us that casualty counts were the figure of merit, and by that measure, we were winning the war. Later, we found out the numbers had been distorted. And death totals were not even the right metric in the end, because the North Vietnamese were fighting for their very existence. The number of men they could call up at will was way beyond anything we could ever deal with. (I highly recommend reading H.R. McMaster’s book Dereliction of Duty if you want to learn more about this.)

The Women is an important reminder that no one was more impacted by these lies than the brave men and women serving overseas. They were sent to the frontlines of an unwinnable conflict, and they returned home to a nation that had turned against both the war and the people who served in it. Frankie reflects that “the world of hippies and protesters felt far, far away. It had nothing to do with the guys dying over here. Except that it did. The protests made them feel that their sacrifices meant nothing or, worse, that they were doing something wrong.”

I like to think that has changed by now. Enough time has passed that most people acknowledge the individual heroism that took place in Vietnam, even though history doesn’t look kindly on the war itself. People over there did things that we can—and should—be proud of. That’s one reason why I’m glad to see a book like The Women doing so well. It’s a beautifully written tribute to a group of veterans who deserve more appreciation for the incredible sacrifices they made.