Chapter Thirty-Five #3
Here on the cordoned-off street, Vietnam veterans gathered; thousands of men, dressed in uniforms and fatigues, leather jackets with military patches on the sleeves, and torn jeans.
There were veterans in wheelchairs and on crutches, some blinded and being helped along by friends.
Thousands and thousands of Vietnam veterans, coming together for the first time in a decade or more.
There was a feeling of reunion, joy. Men clapping each other on the back, laughing, hugging.
Someone with a bullhorn yelled out, “Brothers! Let’s go pay our respects!” and the crowd began to form itself into a parade line.
Frankie and Ethel and Barb joined the line of men.
Someone started to sing “America the Beautiful,” and others joined in, hesitantly, and then boldly.
Their voices swelled in song. And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.
Frankie heard her friends and fellow veterans singing beside her.
Spectators applauded from the sidewalks; car horns honked.
As they neared the National Mall, the vets fell quiet, all at once, with no one urging the sudden stillness.
No more singing. No talking. No clearing of throats, even.
They walked together, shoulder to shoulder, these men who’d fought in a hated war and come home to animosity and still didn’t know how to feel about what they’d lived through.
Helicopters flew in formation overhead. As far as Frankie could see, the three of them were the only women, although they searched the crowd for nurses or Donut Dollies or other military women with whom they’d served.
At the Mall, an American flag fluttered in the cool breeze above a trio of bright red fire trucks.
Supporters filled the grassy area, lined the Reflecting Pool, waited for the parade of veterans: children on their parents’ shoulders, families huddled together, mothers holding framed pictures of their lost sons, dogs barking, babies screaming.
Five jets flew overhead; one peeled off from the rest. The missing man formation.
The welcome home these veterans had never received.
Veterans dispersed into the waiting crowd, joined their families, gathered in pods of old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years.
“Come with me,” Barb said, tugging on Frankie’s hand.
Frankie shook her head. “Go, girls. Be with your families. We’ll meet up.”
“You want to be alone?” Ethel said.
Frankie bit back her instinctive response. I am alone. “Go,” she said again, quietly.
Frankie moved forward on her own, through the crowd.
And then, there it was: The Wall. Gleaming black granite rising up from the green grass, the shiny surface alive with reflected movement. Honor Guards stood stationed at intervals along it.
Frankie was overwhelmed by the sight of it. Even from here, she could see the endless etchings on the stone. More than fifty-eight thousand names.
A generation of men.
And eight women. Nurses, all of them.
Names of the fallen.
In the distance, somewhere, someone tapped on a microphone, made a scratching, squealing sound that drew the attention of the crowd.
A man’s voice rang out. “No one can debate the sacrifice and the service of those who fell while serving… Standing before this monument, we see reflected in a dark mirror dimly a chance now to let go of the pain, the grief, the resentment, the bitterness, the guilt…”
As the speech went on, the speaker remarked on the world the veterans had come home to and the shame now felt by Americans who hadn’t welcomed their soldiers home.
At last, the speaker said the words that Frankie and her fellow veterans had waited for all these years: “Welcome home and thank you.” The soldier next to Frankie began to cry.
The veterans sang “God Bless America.”
Their family and the visitors joined in.
At the end of the song, with the last notes echoing across the Mall, the speaker said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is now dedicated.”
A cheer rose up from the crowd, a thunderous applause.
Someone else stepped up to the podium. A grizzled, old-before-his-time vet in stained fatigues. “Thank you for finally remembering us.”
Reporters and cameramen pushed through the crowd, seeking statements for the nightly news.
Frankie drifted down the sloping grass, drawn to the Wall. She saw women holding framed photographs of the men they’d lost, and a teenager wearing his father’s too-big dress uniform.
As she neared the mirror of black granite, she saw her own reflection—a skinny, long-haired woman in fatigues and a boonie hat—superimposed over the names of the fallen.
She glanced down the black line, saw men in uniform standing tall in front of it, while women knelt before it, children and parents at their sides.
“Frances.”
She turned and saw her parents moving toward her.
“You came,” Frankie said, overwhelmed with emotion.
Her mother held a framed photograph of Finley to her chest. Dad held tightly on to Mom’s other hand. “I wanted to see his name,” Mom said quietly. “My son. He would want me here.”
The three of them moved as one to the Wall, searched the names and dates.
There he was.
Finley O. McGrath.
Frankie reached out to touch the stone; to her surprise, it was warm.
She traced the etching of her brother’s name, remembering the sound of his laughter, the way he teased her, the stories he read her before bed.
I’m going to be a great American novelist…
Here, Frankie, that’s your wave. Paddle hard. You got it.
“Hey, Fin,” she said.
It felt good, to think of him as he was, as he’d been. Not just as a casualty of war, but as a beloved brother. For too many years, all she’d thought of was his death; now, at the Wall, she remembered his life.
She heard her mother crying, and the soft, wrenching sound of it brought tears to Frankie’s eyes, too, blurred her vision.
“He’s here,” Frankie said. “I feel him.”
“I always feel him,” her mother said in a voice that held on to sorrow. Beside her, Dad stood rigid, his jaw clenched, afraid even here to show his grief.
“Ma’am?”
Frankie felt someone tap on her shoulder and say again, “Ma’am?”
She turned.
The man who’d tapped her shoulder was maybe her age, with long sideburns and a straggly beard. He wore torn and stained fatigues. He pulled off his boonie hat, which held patches from the 101st. “Ma’am, were you a nurse over there?”
Frankie almost asked how he knew; then she remembered that she was wearing her fatigues and boonie hat, and her winged ANC pin.
“I was,” she said, studying the man, trying to remember him. Had she held his hand or written a letter for him, or taken a picture with him or brought him a glass of water? If she had, she didn’t recall it.
She felt her father step closer to her. “Frankie, do you—”
Frankie held up a hand for silence. For once, her father complied.
The soldier reached out to hold her hand, stared into her eyes.
In that moment, on the Mall ground, with the Wall shining beside them, the two of them shared it all—the horror, the grief, the pain, the pride, the guilt, the camaraderie.
She thought, Here we are, for the first time since the war, all of us together.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, and she nodded and let him go.
Frankie felt her father’s gaze on her.
She turned, looked up at him, saw the tears in his eyes. “Finley loved his service, Dad. We wrote letters all the time. He found himself over there. You don’t need to feel guilty.”
“You think I feel guilty for urging my son to go to war? I do. It’s a thing I live with.” He swallowed hard. “But I feel more guilt about how I treated my daughter when she came home.”
Frankie drew in a sharp breath. How long had she waited to hear those words from him?
“You’re the hero, aren’t you, Frankie?”
Tears blurred her vision. “I don’t know about a hero, Dad, but I served my country. Yeah.”
“I love you, Peanut,” he said in a rough voice. “And I’m sorry.”
Peanut. God, he hadn’t called her that in years.
Frankie saw him crying and wished she knew the perfect words to say, but nothing came to her.
Life was like that, she guessed; it was all wrong until suddenly it was right, and you didn’t really know how to react in either instance.
But she knew love when she saw it, and it filled her.
“I don’t know about heroism,” she said. “But I saw a lot of it. And…” She drew in a deep breath.
“I’m proud of my service, Dad. It’s taken me a long time to say that.
I’m proud, even if the war never should have happened, even if it went to hell. ”
Her father nodded. She could see that he wanted more from her, absolution maybe, but there was time ahead for that.
This. Here. Was her time. Her moment. Her memories.
She left her parents standing in front of Finley’s name, and walked along the Wall, looking for 1967–1969, seeing the flowers and pictures and yearbooks that were being set up at the base of the black granite.
She saw a Gold Star Mother standing beside a pair of confused-looking teenagers trying to construct their lost father from letters carved into granite.
She followed the line of names, looking for Jameson Callahan—
“McGrath.”
Frankie stopped.
He stood in front of her. Tall and gray-haired, with a jagged scar along one side of his face and a pants leg that ruffled against a prosthetic.
“Jamie.”
He pulled her into his arms, whispering, “McGrath,” again, into her ear.
Just that, being called McGrath again, hearing his voice, feeling his breath on her neck, sent her back to the O Club, beaded curtain clattering, the Beatles singing, Jamie asking her to dance. “Jamie,” she whispered. “How—”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small gray stone that read:
YOU FIGHT
MCGRATH.
The stone she’d been given by the young Vietnamese boy in the orphanage, and which she’d slipped into Jamie’s duffel bag. “It was a hellhole over there and worse when we got home,” he said quietly, “but you got me through it, McGrath. Remembering you got me through.”
“I saw you die.”
“I died lots of times,” he said. “They kept dragging me back. I was in bad shape for a long time. My injuries… Christ, look at me…”
“You are still as handsome as ever,” Frankie said, unable to look away.
“My ex-wife would disagree.”
“You’re not—”
“It’s a long, sad story with a happy ending for both of us. I stayed with her for years. We had another baby. A girl. She’s nine, and a real spitfire.” He stared down at her. “Her name is Frances.”
Frankie didn’t know how to respond; it was hard to draw a breath.
“How about you?” he said, trying to smile. “Married, with kids?”
“No,” Frankie said. “Never married. No kids.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly; he of all people knew how much she’d wanted that life.
“It’s okay. I’m happy.”
She gazed up at him. On his face, she saw all that he’d been through: the jagged jawline scar, the pucker of skin along one ear, the sadness in his eyes.
His blond hair was long now, threaded with gray, a reminder that they’d been young once together, but weren’t anymore, that there were scars on both of them. Wounds that remained, seen and unseen.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he said in a cracked, scratchy voice.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Frankie said. “You could have found me.”
“I wasn’t ready. It’s been rough. Healing.”
“Yeah,” Frankie said. “For me, too.”
“But we’re here now,” he said. “You and me, McGrath. Finally.”
He gave her a smile that made her feel young again. For a moment, time fell away; they were Frankie and Jamie again, walking through camp, keeping each other upright, sharing their lives, laughing and crying together, loving each other.
She felt the start of tears, felt them on her face as she stood there, surrounded by her fellow Vietnam veterans, the wall of black granite blurring behind them.
Jamie moved toward her, stumbled; she reached out to steady him.
“I’ve got you,” she said, her words echoing his from long ago.
There was so much to say to him, words she’d gathered and stored in her memories, dreamed of saying, but there would be time for that, time for them.
Today, just being here, holding his hand, was enough. More than enough.
Miraculous.
After all these years, so much pain and regret and loss, they were here, she and Jamie and thousands of others. Battered and limping and in wheelchairs, some of them, but still here. All of us. Together again. In a group, at a wall that held the names of the fallen.
Together.
Survivors, all.
They’d been silenced, forgotten for too long, especially the women.
Remembering you got me through.
And there it was: remembrance mattered. She knew that now; there was no looking away from war or from the past, no soldiering on through pain.
Somehow Frankie would find a way to tell the country about her sisters—the women with whom she’d served. For the nurses who had died, for their children, for the women who would follow in the years to come.
It started here. Now. By speaking up, standing in the sunlight, coming together, demanding honesty and truth. Taking pride.
The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn’t quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words.
We were there.