Charlie Company’s Journey Home: The Boys of ’67 and the War They Left Behind

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.)