Author Heath Lee speaks at MC veterans programs

Nationally acclaimed author Heath Lee, writer of “The League of Wives,” spoke to the community on Sunday in the St. Clare Walker Middle School auditorium and at the annual Christ Church Parish Veterans Day luncheon celebration on Monday at Christ Church Parish on the political role wives of Vietnam prisoners of war (POWs) played in gaining freedom for their husbands and others.

A very engaging speaker, Lee spoke of the courage of these women going up against a determined President Lyndon Johnson whose “Keep Quiet” policy on POWs and servicemen missing in action (MIAs) just wasn’t working for them.

The wives banned together and formed an east and west coast coalition to get the word out across the entire nation and to keep it in the news — that their husbands were imprisoned in North Vietnam’s “Hanoi Hilton” prison.

Lee detailed the efforts of Lyndon Johnson, the Pentagon and how the U.S. government under Johnson hindered efforts for political reasons to free the servicemen while President Richard Nixon would go on to be proactive in the effort, according to Lee.

Lee emphasized that the courage of these women, who refused to “stand down” and be quiet and who were “smart” enough to see that without their activism their husbands might well never come home, played a major role in their eventual freedom.