The League of Wives

February 1, 2019
A Vietnam War story about the mostly unreported role of military wives who ignored protocol to help free their husbands, held as prisoners of war, from torture by the North Vietnamese.Relying on extensive personal interviews and previously unseen documents, Lee (Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause, 2014) builds to February 1973, when 115 American POWs departed North Vietnam on U.S. military transport planes to receive health care, debriefings, and finally emergence into public view. Many of the American airmen never thought they would be shot from the sky, captured, and tortured--partly because of their ultraconfidence in their training, partly because they severely underestimated the fighting capabilities of the North Vietnamese military. Their wives back in the States, many with children, naturally felt desperate to learn the fates of their husbands. However, commanders in the American military services and diplomats in the U.S. State Department told them, often in condescending fashion, to remain quiet and docile so that negotiations with the enemy could proceed. Eventually, after years of excruciating worry, the wives of the prisoners--as well as fliers missing in action--began to actively discuss how to remedy the situation. As more years passed with no progress, wives on bases scattered around the country began organizing together. Lee's cast of determined women is extensive and occasionally difficult to track as they enter and depart the narrative. Two of the most prominent are Sybil Stockdale (husband Jim) and Jane Denton (husband Jeremiah). (The renowned John McCain does not play a major role in the narrative.) In addition to the wrenching personal stories, the author handles context gracefully, especially regarding the wives and their ability to find their voices amid the continuing saga of an unjust war. "If these military wives hadn't rejected the 'keep quiet' policy and spoken out," she writes, "the POWs might have been left to languish in prison."A book both educational and emotional.

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February 18, 2019
This inspirational work by curator-historian Lee (Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause) tells of Vietnam-era military wives who were “expected to sit down, shut up, keep a low profile,” but instead worked tirelessly to help their POW husbands. From 1965 to 1973, hundreds of American military pilots were shot down over southeast Asia and became prisoners of war. Despite being told by the government to wait for negotiations to proceed, POW wives Jane Denton and Sybil Stockdale formed a powerful partnership; it grew from home-hosted support groups to the establishment of the formal advocacy organization the National League of Families. They’re among a larger cast of military wives and POW/MIA advocates who relentlessly lobbied politicians, conducted local and national meetings, embarked on diplomatic missions to North Vietnamese embassies in Europe, and launched savvy media campaigns. The Johnson administration wanted to keep the POWs’ torture and mistreatment a secret, the State Department considered the wives a nuisance, and Congress was “oblivious to their plight,” so they became “fighters... at war with their own government.” In this beautifully told history, Lee unearths the contributions of everyday women who not only saved their husbands but influenced military culture. Agent: Katherine Flynn, the Kneerim and Williams Agency.

Starred review from March 1, 2019
Although many stories of the brave men held as POWs during the Vietnam War have been shared over the years (most famously, Senator John McCain's), the battles fought by their wives on the home front have largely been glossed over, if not totally ignored. Lee (Winnie Davis, 2014) uncovered an amazing forgotten history. She initially curated a museum exhibition on this subject, which is traveling the country. Here she recounts in stirring detail how the wives of POWs and MIAs had to fight the military hierarchy for nearly the entire time their husbands were held. From arguing with navy liaisons for the right to spend their husbands' paychecks as they saw fit to challenging the official but blatantly false claim by the Johnson administration that the POWs were not tortured, these women were engaged in battles at every turn. Lee addresses the stringent societal constraints the wives struggled under, rules that demanded they defer to the military in all matters regarding threats to their husbands' careers and livelihoods. Speaking up took enormous courage, but they did it, and now, thanks to Lee's impressive research, their voices can be heard by those who embraced titles like Hidden Figures (2016) and The Glass Universe (2016). Book clubs should line up for this one; it begs for discussion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 1, 2019

$28.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250161123. HISTORY On February 12, 1973, 115 navy and air force pilots struggled home, the first Vietnam POWs released after years of imprisonment and torture. What they didn't know at first was that they had been released because of efforts by their wives, who formed the National League to lobby government leaders, bombard the media with their message, meet on the sly with antiwar activists, learn encryption so that they could smuggle information out of Vietnam, and even carry out direct negotiations with the North Vietnamese. From the author of the multi-award-winning Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2019

$28.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250161123. HISTORY On February 12, 1973, 115 navy and air force pilots struggled home, the first Vietnam POWs released after years of imprisonment and torture. What they didn't know at first was that they had been released because of efforts by their wives, who formed the National League to lobby government leaders, bombard the media with their message, meet on the sly with antiwar activists, learn encryption so that they could smuggle information out of Vietnam, and even carry out direct negotiations with the North Vietnamese. From the author of the multi-award-winning Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.