The Women: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Frankie sits with Jamie in the Neuro ward. Rob suggests she say goodbye; he will write to Sarah. Frankie holds Jamie’s hand and tells him to hang on. She wishes she’d told him she loved him. Medics arrive to take Jamie to the Third Evac Hospital. Frankie puts the Vietnamese boy’s stone into Jamie’s bag after inscribing it with her name. She kisses his cheek and whispers that she loves him. Halfway to the helicopter, one of the medics begins chest compressions, meaning Jamie’s heart stopped. Once inside the helicopter, the medic stops compressions and shakes his head. Frankie screams at the medic not to stop, but the chopper is too far away for the medic to hear her. 

Barb and Frankie go to the O Club, where the atmosphere is subdued. They toast Jamie. Frankie wishes she weren’t a nurse, since that way she wouldn’t know what Jamie’s injuries meant. Barb has news: her DEROS came. She leaves Vietnam in December. Frankie is tired of losing people. She writes to Ethel about Jamie’s death, feeling unable to go on. Ethel responds with sympathy and realism: this is what war is like. Everyone leaves, one way or another. Frankie is grateful for her friend’s support despite the distance between them. She hasn’t written her parents since Jamie died. Mom has been telling her about the hippies and music of the Summer of Love, which seems vulgar in light of Vietnam.

Major Goldstein informs Frankie she’s being transferred to the 71st Evac Hospital in Pleiku near the Cambodian border. She is upset to lose Frankie and tells her to update her will and write to her parents before leaving. Pleiku—also called Rocket City—sees heavy combat in the deep mountainside jungles. When Frankie tells Barb, her friend insists on transferring too, wanting to spend her last months in Vietnam together. A new nurse moves into their hooch, wearing the same uniform Frankie wore on her first day. She looks terrified. Recalling her own days as a turtle, Frankie tells her not to drink the water.

Frankie writes to Mom and Dad about Ethel’s beach party and her transfer. She asks for more perfume, since the soldiers love it when she smells like home. Frankie wants them to know she is happy she came to Vietnam—like Finley once said, she’s where she’s meant to be. Later, she and Barb arrive in Pleiku: a plot of land cut out of the green mountainside. The 71st Evac Hospital looks more temporary then the 36th because of its proximity to the fighting. Sergeant Alvarez greets the women and shows them around. Their new hooch smells of mold. Frankie hangs up a polaroid of Jamie while Barb hangs posters of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali.

Their unpacking is interrupted by the sound of choppers. Frankie and Barb run to the ER to report for duty. The medics there are obviously short-staffed and grateful for help. On their way to the OR, a shell explodes very close to them. Inside, Lieutenant Colonel Hap Dickerson puts them to work. A rocket knocks out the electricity and Hap calls for emergency generators, whose humming adds to the overwhelming din. Frankie calms herself by thinking of Jamie and Ethel before closing a patient’s wound.

Frankie follows Hap to another casualty: a man missing both legs. Another rocket hits and someone shouts that the hospital is being targeted, necessitating a mandatory blackout. For the next 10 hours, Frankie works by flashlight and often on her knees, ready to take cover. Many South Vietnamese soldiers, civilians, and children come through. When the lights finally come back on, Hap commends her work. Outside the OR, bodies of dead men are piled on the walkways and in the morgue. Through the wire fence, Frankie can see the enemy’s lights moving through the jungle. She finds Barb, who isn’t doing well. They share a joint. Frankie tries to comfort her friend but wonders how she’ll do this alone.