Ordinary Women from Extraordinary Times

The decision to search for women to interview led me to the challenge of finding them, how hard could that be? At first, I thought I would only write about women from World War II, however, as the months went by, I decided to find women from the three wars the US was committed to in a thirty-two-year span of time. After asking around, a former coworker of mine referred me to a ninety-year old lady whose husband fought in the Battle of the Bulge. She had stories and she was very sharp. I was thrilled that she would possibly talk to me. When I called her, she promptly told me she was too busy getting her memorabilia to a local museum and she had no extra time. Before I could present a convincing case, she said goodbye and the phone line clicked. At the same time when I began to seek out wives of Vietnam Vets I was repeatedly told, “Good luck, most of them didn’t stay married and the men will be suspicious.” True. Then there was the “forgotten war”, Korea. It really was forgotten as no one seemed to know a woman from that era. I knew what to do; continue asking anybody anywhere.

The search was on. I spoke to seventeen different women over a period of a year, I would choose only five to interview for this book. It is massively important to say that four of the five women did not know me. My question was, would I be able to garner their trust to write their untold stories?