Meeting My ‘Muse’

As I mentioned in a previous blog I had never written a novel before. I was trained as a military historian, and my degrees are in history and political science. And while I was an avid reader I had never really thought about writing anything other than documented history. When I wrote my book ,” A Civil War History of Harrison County West Virginia” It consisted of 213 pages, 677 citations and a six page bibliography.

When I was challenged to write down some of my stories from Vietnam I really didn’t have anything to back any of them up. They were “War Stories”! Some of them were stories that didn’t even happen to me they happened while I was assigned to my different positions in Vietnam. But they were great stories that needed to be told and recorded someplace.

So how do you write these stories in such a way that they are something other than bits and pieces of distant memories?  Well you have to establish a back story, the storyline that allows you to provide a relatable hero as well as characters that enhance the storyline and make them come to life.

It was easy for me to use some of my experiences as the hero of the book. Now don’t get me wrong I never considered myself to be a hero for serving in Vietnam. While I have the medals and the honors to show that I was there that did not make me a hero. When people ask about the heroes from Vietnam my comment is that most of them are named on the memorial wall in Washington DC, the men and women who didn’t make it home. To quote an old poem that I wrote many years ago:

“Did they die with honor, one might ask

  What was their duty, their mission, their task?

 What was the reason that they died for?

 Simply, they died for freedom, and to end all war!”

According to the veterans administration 2.2 million of us served in a combat role in Vietnam. Almost 60% of us are gone, and that was one reason that I thought I should write down some of these stories, as inaccurate as they might be. That’s why I try in my blogs to explain some of these stories.

Now back to my ‘muse’ for the romantic portions of the novel.

As I’ve stated in other blogs, writing the love story was difficult. I had two objects in mind. First this was to be a coming-of-age story; two very young people thrown together as a result of a war. Secondly, I wanted the love story to be ‘romantic’ and not “R-Rated”. That could come in the second book where the hero is free to ‘sow his wild oats’ and even that’s probably “PG-Rated”.

I was looking for a picture of a young woman to serve as the model for the female character in my book, ‘Cathy Stewart’. I was looking for an American Red Cross worker, in her Red Cross uniform. Since my character Cathy came from Nebraska I was looking for that sturdy, girl next door, Midwestern look. I found a page in Facebook that had a large number of photographs of what we referred to as ‘Donut Dollies’ who served with the American Red Cross. My ‘muse’ hair length was what I envisioned in my character, as well as the youthful, innocent, home town girl appearance that I wanted to portray in my novel. Remember that the hero of the novel was a twenty year old Second Lieutenant, therefore ‘Catherine Stewart’ needed to look to be about the same age. The photograph that I was looking at fit the bill. Every time that I needed to try to describe ‘Catherine Stewart’ I could look at that photograph and use it as my example.

In my book, ‘Catherine Stewart’ wasn’t a “Donut Dollie”. She was a young woman who was contracted by the American Red Cross to work in their office in Saigon. Specifically ‘Catherine Stewart’ worked in a section in their main office that contacted soldiers who needed to come back to the United States on emergency leave. In most cases a family member had died, or was seriously ill and the soldier needed to be sent home immediately.

To digress; when I first moved to Clarksburg after retirement from the army I did a stint as a volunteer with the American Red Cross here in town. One of the things that I assisted with was verifying these emergency situations and pass the information on to Red Cross representatives. A family member would contact indicating that their service member serving overseas needed to come home immediately. I would then have to contact the doctor and the family to verify the Information. Once the need was verified our office would then contact the American Red Cross representative for that service and make arrangements for that service member to return home. The military at that point had 72 hours to locate a service member and start moving them home. I enjoyed the job, as a retired soldier I felt I was helping my brothers and sisters in arms. Occasionally we would have a glitch, the need to return home either didn’t exist, or the situation had already rectified itself.

As I was envisioning the book, trying to decide on a love interest, I needed to have ‘Catherine Stewart’ working in Saigon. I knew that during the Vietnam War the Red Cross had a major communication site for these types of notifications at MACV Headquarters. This gave me a legitimate reason to ensure that the love interest was always in town whenever he could get there.

So as I was envisioning all of this to write my novel I needed to find that one woman to serve as my muse.

There were a few women with military and civilian agencies who were in Vietnam during the war. My friend Captain Myers was a good example. She was assigned with a duty station at the Military Assistance Command Headquarters. On my last assignment to Vietnam we had a number of females working at the 525^th Military Intelligence Group headquarters in Saigon as well. They were linguists and administrative personnel.

Then there were the army nurses; these wonderful women, these angels of mercy, who served in all of the hospitals throughout the entire country. When I was in the hospital in Saigon with my back injury I remember how gracious and caring they were.

There was another group of women when I served there, they worked for the American Red Cross. We referred to them as ‘Donut Dollies’.

These young women had strict recruiting requirements. Over 600 ‘Donut Dollies’ responded to the somewhat opaque Red Cross’s ads seeking “qualified young women who were willing to serve one year overseas.” They had to be at least twenty-one, have a college education, and have that “girl next door” look. Among the understated requirements: “the job requires a capacity for hard work under less than ideal conditions.”

‘Donut Dollies’ were stationed at many of the military base camps. They set up recreation centers and wrote up and conducted recreation programs in the field for troops who couldn’t visit the centers.  They were there to bring hometown to the men serving on the front lines. They also visited hospitals to hand out activity books and spent time in evac hospitals with the wounded. As one ‘Donut Dolly’ put it, “Our job was to smile and be bubbly for an entire year— no matter what the situation.” 

No one appreciated the presence of the ‘Donut Dollies’ more than the troops on the remote firebases. Minutes spent talking about home or sports or music or wives and girlfriends with a fresh-faced American girl with a pony tail wearing a tinge of lipstick and a splash of perfume was a terrific morale boost. 

And the fact that these young women had the guts to brave incoming mortars, sniper and ground- to-air fire, and other wartime hardships and dangers to visit the firebases earned them the unarguable respect and admiration of the troops. And that’s exactly how Vietnam veterans remember the Red Cross ‘Donut Dollies’ nearly fifty to sixty years later— with unarguable appreciation, respect, and admiration.

They would set up canteens for the soldiers when they were in from the field. In many cases they would fly or drive out to some of the more isolated facilities to bring hometown America home to our soldiers. Of course many soldiers never saw a ‘Donut Dolly’. I was one of them, I was on a very small team, and we just didn’t get that level of attention. We did, however, get a number of visits from members of the USO.

So when writing my book I found this picture of this beautiful girl who fit the bill to serve as my ideal for ‘Catherine Stewart’.

Now jump more than 50 years forward. I was going through Facebook, and I saw a familiar picture. It was the same woman that I had used as my model for Cathy. This time I had a name!

Now I won’t divulge her name, but through Facebook I was able to make contact with her. We had a nice Facebook discussion, catching up on our time in Vietnam, and reminiscing about those days. I hope that she reads the books and realizes how important that picture was to my writing.

At this point all I can say is thank you Penni, for unknowingly serving as my ‘muse’.

Thank you My Sister for your service in Vietnam;  and thank you to all of the wonderful women that had the courage, the dedication, and the patriotism to serve in that war-torn land. You don’t know how much we appreciated your service; how much we appreciated seeing a round eyed American girl, our home town girl, there with us.

We often think about the men who served there, my brothers in arms. But we sometimes forget about the women who were there right beside us, that suffered through that war and suffered after that war with what they saw and experienced.

To all of my brothers and sisters in arms, to all of those nurses, WACs, female service members and our “Red Cross Donut Dollies”: “Welcome Home! We made it”.

If you’re enjoying these blogs please drop me a comment or if you have any questions that I might answer again submit a comment on the comment pages. I’m always glad to hear from you.

Again please take a look at all of my books that I have listed. They can be purchased from Amazon.com with the click of a button directly from the website. Until next week, Have a good one.

The Advisor Series:

• “The Advisor, Kien Bing, South Vietnam, 1969-1970. A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B09L4X5NQ3)
• “The Province Senior Intelligence Advisor, Kien Song Province 1970-1971; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0BHL2XCX5)
• “The Hardchargers,” Vietnam 1972-1973; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0C7SPR1JY)
• “The Tuscarora Trail” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0D3QY2GM6)

Check out my website for other books that I’ve written or edited.

Website: ptaylorvietnamadvisor.com