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(More customer reviews)SOME WELCOME HOME by Sharon Wildwind puts a face on the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Wildwind writes from experience as an army nurse in Vietnam in the early 1970s and a year as head nurse on an orthopedic unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where this novel is set. Her experiences and insights give the book authenticity. Nothing seems pasted on. It's the real deal.
Opening line: "Through the slit in the closed drapes, a thin bar of afternoon sunlight fell across the soldier's chest, highlighting the dark, small bullet hole."
Such is Captain Elizabeth "Pepper" Pepperhawk's "welcome" to the Transient Officers' Quarters at Fort Bragg. The body is wearing a World War 2 uniform but his hair is long. She thinks: "Maybe he wasn't a soldier; maybe someone dressed him in a uniform. But there was something about him, even in death, that said 'soldier.' He was one of us ..."
I was reminded of Shakespeare's "band of brothers" as I read. This emotional bond, this shared experience, runs through Wildwind's story. It also drives a key character who keeps applying for combat service, convinced that her request is routinely denied because she's a woman.
The story is told through three main characters. There's army nurse Pepperhawk, who survived Vietnam but is troubled by flashbacks. There's Benny Kirkpatrick, a Green Beret just returned from the Panamanian jungle, who wants to chuck it all, get married and raise a family. There's Captain Avivah Rosen of the military police, who envies their bond and wants to share it.
So who is the dead man on Pepper's bed? We get pieces of the puzzle one at a time. The investigation begins with a World War 2 veteran who reports a stolen uniform, and leads to three lifelong friends who served in Vietnam and swore to look after one another, no matter what.
How many of those now stationed at Fort Bragg could have been in a certain location in Saigon on January 20, 1969? Quite a few, as it turns out. A crime committed then and there has finally come to light a world away.
As Pepper, Benny and Avivah track the clues to a small mountain community, Pepper finds herself drawn into the lives of those who thought they had put Vietnam behind them. Wildwind writes with a sure hand of both the military community and the civilian community, and the arrest of a high-ranking, well-connected officer takes this complex mystery to a suspenseful ending.
SOME WELCOME HOME is the first in a planned five-book series. I enjoyed it from beginning to end, and look forward to the next one.
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