When I first saw the book lying atop a stack in the Naval Institute’s library, my initial impulse was to pass it by. The dust jacket was covered mainly with blue sky and clouds. Then I focused on the title, Lonely Girls With Burning Eyes (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1991), which meant it was unlikely to be about aviation, despite the sky. But one element on the cover did arrest my attention: a red, yellow, and green replica of the ribbon for the Vietnam Service Medal. This was a book worth looking into.
The author is Marian Faye Novak, and her title refers to the wives and girlfriends left behind when their men went away to Vietnam. Their eyes burned from the tears they shed during lonely months of separation or in mourning for the warriors who never came back. The book is an eloquent, intensely personal expression of a viewpoint seldom articulated in the wake of the Vietnam War. In many ways the separation was harder to endure for the waiting women than it was for those in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
To be sure, the men’s lives were frequently in peril, but they at least knew what was happening, were surrounded by like- minded comrades, and had plenty of activity to fill up the hours of separation.
Each day, the women endured the uncertainty of not knowing if they were wives or not-yet-notified widows. The increasingly hostile populace of the United States hardly constituted a support group or source of strength.
Lonely Girls is a memoir written with the skill of a professional author, which Marian is. It begins with a breezy description of her growing-up years and her college experience in the state of Washington. There, she met Dave Novak, a graduate student in mathematics. After their social life got off to a fumbling start, a romance blossomed, and they were married just as Dave, a newly commissioned second lieutenant, headed off for Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico, Virginia. The tendrils of fear and apprehension began to grow as Dave’s training proceeded in late 1966 and early 1967. Tactical exercises in the hills of Virginia toughened him physically and mentally. His soon-pregnant wife had to share him with a Marine Corps that was making a great many demands.
In the spring of 1967, the Novaks said their farewells as a giant silver bird was swallowing up khaki-clad men, some of whom would come home months later in silver- colored coffins. During Dave’s absence, she went back to school. Her fellow students had an antiwar bent, so she often found it useful to keep her views to herself. Mail became the vital link in the couple’s relationship. Lieutenant Novak was extremely laconic in his letters, not wishing to alarm his bride unduly.
Marian stayed in touch with the wives of the other lieutenants who had gone through training with her husband. They shared news and boosted each other’s spirits to the extent they could. They telephoned each other with the happy news that one of their husbands looked great when a TV newsman had interviewed him in Vietnam. They telephoned also when they learned a few days later that he had been killed. For each of them, grief was only a chaplain’s visit away. The arrival of an official Marine Corps car was especially to be dreaded.
Respite came in mid-tour, when the Novaks met for a few days of R&R in Hawaii. It was a surreal time out in the midst of fighting and waiting. The book describes the rendezvous, in sometimes intimate detail.
Months later, after Dave had been promoted to captain and seen the horrors of Hue in 1968 (see his article in the September-October 1993 Naval History), the separation was over. But for the Novaks, the Vietnam War was not over, nor perhaps will it ever be. For years the memories of the jungle and the killing haunted the Marine as he settled into a career in academia. He turned to drink, and at times he disappeared from the family for periods of time. The nightmares peeled back several layers of the socialization all of us need to get through our encounters with fellow humans. Finally, he talked it out in a visit with Phil Caputo, author of A Rumor of War. With that catharsis, Dave Novak rejoined his family.
In the 1990s the Novaks were able to pass on the favor to fellow Marines. A reunion association developed for Dave’s unit—Second Battalion, First Marines. The Novaks encouraged those who had served in-country to share their recollections. They came in handwritten letters, self-recorded tapes, and telephone interviews. Finally, someone was listening to what they had to say about an experience that few of their countrymen wanted to hear about when the Marines came home. The first-person reminiscences included that of a Marine whose Vietnam memories led him to kill himself sometime after contributing those memories. The powerful collection of individual memoirs, edited by the Novaks into a book called We Remember, includes a listing of the Marines from that unit who died in Vietnam. It is a book that validates the accomplishments of the men and convinces them that someone cares.
With their books, Marian and Dave Novak have preserved a powerful, often painful heritage of a war that many Americans would prefer to forget. They have performed such a valuable service that I hope many other veterans emulate them.