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The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War
This memoir is based on handwritten letters, cards, and newspaper clippings sent between Carole and Bill Wagener from September 1968 to August 1969. The vernacular is accurate to that time, using words that are no longer politically correct. The letters, based on actual events, may have been compressed. Please note there was a time lapse between these letters due to a lag in the mail. Some names and identifying characteristics were changed to protect privacy, and some dialogue was recreated. The remainder of the book is based on Carole and Bill’s memories to the best of their recollection over time. Because this is a war story, some chapters are very graphic and may not suit those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other trauma-related disorders. In addition, the book contains some offensive language and sexual references. Finally, there are several military terms, and various German, French, and Vietnamese phrases mentioned in this book. These terms are defined in the glossary.
340 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 9, 2023
About the author
Carole Wagener
4 books1 followerCarole Wagener, a graduate of UW-Madison, had a fifty year successful career in physical therapy.
A the age of 67 she became a writer after joining a California Writers Club. Her short stories and poetry have been published in the Coastal Dunes CWC Anthologies. Her first book, The Hardest Year, won a 2023 Military History Finalist Award from the International Book Awards. In 2023, she also was the recipient of the Jack London Award for her years of volunteerism with the CWC. She and William live on the beautiful Central Coast of California with their black cat, Zombie.
A the age of 67 she became a writer after joining a California Writers Club. Her short stories and poetry have been published in the Coastal Dunes CWC Anthologies. Her first book, The Hardest Year, won a 2023 Military History Finalist Award from the International Book Awards. In 2023, she also was the recipient of the Jack London Award for her years of volunteerism with the CWC. She and William live on the beautiful Central Coast of California with their black cat, Zombie.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 30, 2023
Almost quit this one after the first few pages. The writing is clumsy, and it's tough to get past that. But the actual (many, many) letters exchanged between Carole and Bill are very readable and a rare, real look at love and war in 1968 and 1969. I think a lot of people who were in their late teens and early twenties during that time period will find this an authentic blast from the past. (I wanted to throttle Bill for his sexism and machismo and to hug him for his sensitive moments and his heroism. Both, pretty much equally.)
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July 16, 2023MWSA Review
The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War by Carole and William Wagener is a rare and intriguing treat in which the reader viscerally feels the desperation, anguish, pain, separation, confusion, and awfulness experienced by a young newlywed couple separated one day after their wedding by his deployment to the Vietnam War.
Carole has crafted a unique work based largely on 300 handwritten letters she and her soldier husband Bill exchanged, beginning before he left for basic training through when he returned home a changed young man of 23. She adds additional narratives throughout the book, weaving in her recollections of how she felt after receiving a particularly disturbing/annoying/terrifying account from Vietnam, wrestling at the same time with her own fears, longings, and frustrations as a young woman/student/wife pursuing her undergraduate degree during a time of campus protests.
This book was as revealing as it gets for a couple. Carole and Bill held nothing back in their letters. What a ride, what raw emotions, what daily stress they shared with each other, so many insecurities of youth, of young love, of a marriage she questioned from the beginning for a variety of reasons. I couldn't put it down and found myself grateful for the honesty these two young people shared.
Their two distinct voices, their words written decades ago, put the reader in a variety of settings: on campus witnessing student protests and racial unrest, in Vietnam both in the relative safety of an HQ office, and then on a convoy being ambushed in a life-threatening combat situation. The intense change in settings from the University of Wisconsin campus to various sites in Vietnam as well as the events they each lived and chose to share with each other offer a delightful, and sometimes uncomfortable experience for the reader. Each letter's date and place of origin is clearly indicated. The vocabulary used in their letters was raw and authentic—the feelings and longings of young lovers separated by great distance and terrible circumstances.
Chapter 18, written by Bill, in which he reflects on death-defying events that he never wrote to Carole about, really grabbed me.
The book is constructed with black and white photos included to further draw the reader into this tumultuous year in their lives. Endnotes add info on sourcing, news media accounts, colloquial speech, etc. The glossary includes translations of words used from a variety of languages.
Anyone who wants to feel the human side of how that war disrupted young lives of Americans, who would appreciate a thoroughly intimate and vulnerable account with words that survived the decades, words that reveal how at times these two Americans were just barely holding on as the war raged, and how their love for each other kept them going, will enjoy this book immensely. I highly recommend this book for adults only, due to its mature content.
Review by Grace Tiscareno-Sato (June 2023)
The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War by Carole and William Wagener is a rare and intriguing treat in which the reader viscerally feels the desperation, anguish, pain, separation, confusion, and awfulness experienced by a young newlywed couple separated one day after their wedding by his deployment to the Vietnam War.
Carole has crafted a unique work based largely on 300 handwritten letters she and her soldier husband Bill exchanged, beginning before he left for basic training through when he returned home a changed young man of 23. She adds additional narratives throughout the book, weaving in her recollections of how she felt after receiving a particularly disturbing/annoying/terrifying account from Vietnam, wrestling at the same time with her own fears, longings, and frustrations as a young woman/student/wife pursuing her undergraduate degree during a time of campus protests.
This book was as revealing as it gets for a couple. Carole and Bill held nothing back in their letters. What a ride, what raw emotions, what daily stress they shared with each other, so many insecurities of youth, of young love, of a marriage she questioned from the beginning for a variety of reasons. I couldn't put it down and found myself grateful for the honesty these two young people shared.
Their two distinct voices, their words written decades ago, put the reader in a variety of settings: on campus witnessing student protests and racial unrest, in Vietnam both in the relative safety of an HQ office, and then on a convoy being ambushed in a life-threatening combat situation. The intense change in settings from the University of Wisconsin campus to various sites in Vietnam as well as the events they each lived and chose to share with each other offer a delightful, and sometimes uncomfortable experience for the reader. Each letter's date and place of origin is clearly indicated. The vocabulary used in their letters was raw and authentic—the feelings and longings of young lovers separated by great distance and terrible circumstances.
Chapter 18, written by Bill, in which he reflects on death-defying events that he never wrote to Carole about, really grabbed me.
The book is constructed with black and white photos included to further draw the reader into this tumultuous year in their lives. Endnotes add info on sourcing, news media accounts, colloquial speech, etc. The glossary includes translations of words used from a variety of languages.
Anyone who wants to feel the human side of how that war disrupted young lives of Americans, who would appreciate a thoroughly intimate and vulnerable account with words that survived the decades, words that reveal how at times these two Americans were just barely holding on as the war raged, and how their love for each other kept them going, will enjoy this book immensely. I highly recommend this book for adults only, due to its mature content.
Review by Grace Tiscareno-Sato (June 2023)
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September 4, 2023Carole Wagener ’70
Coauthor
From the coauthor:
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
This hybrid memoir, The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War, takes place in 1968-1969 on the UW¬–Madison campus and in South Vietnam. A nineteen-year-old UW Green Bay student, Carole, who’s missed her period while her boyfriend, Bill, is home on military leave, hastily marries him on September 11, 1968, one day before he departs for Vietnam. A small-town girl majoring in physical therapy, Carole transfers to the tumultuous UW¬–Madison campus amidst the Black Student Strike, Teaching Assistants Association Strike, and antiwar protests. In September 1968, Carole finally receives Bill’s first letter written on a plane on his way to Vietnam. It’s a long and challenging year for Carole, studying cadavers in anatomy, and Bill, assigned to “tag and bag” duty when he arrives in Cam Rah Bay. In December 1968, the couple is reacquainted for one week in Hawaii on Bill’s R&R. Carole returns home to dodge horny men while Bill returns to his office job, which doesn’t keep him out of trouble. Communication continues to be difficult for the couple, with written correspondence often delayed and only occasional brief telephone calls made through MARS (Military Auxiliary Radio System) with two ham radio operators listening in. Although the newlyweds believe they still love one another, the war, time, and distance separating them strain their fragile relationship, leading to arguments at times and at other times to touching love poems. Bill returns to “the real world” physically all in one piece, but he soon experiences his first traumatic nightmare during September 1969. For the next thirty years, a demon monster torments Bill. After reading an article in her P.T. journal, Carole finally recognizes Bill’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms and seeks counseling from the local Veterans Administration. The book ends in 2007 in an Epilogue with the couple questioning the morality of war while attending an Iraq antiwar rally with their fifteen-year-old twin daughters. The book includes thirty-one photographs, a line-drawn map of Vietnam, a glossary of terms, and extensive endnotes of historical value. In 2023, The Hardest Year was awarded a Finalist Medal in Military History by the International Book Awards. The Wagener’s memoir is a love story, a war story, and a coming-of-age story written from the point of view of a girl left behind fifty-five years ago, and it is still relevant today.
Coauthor
From the coauthor:
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
This hybrid memoir, The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War, takes place in 1968-1969 on the UW¬–Madison campus and in South Vietnam. A nineteen-year-old UW Green Bay student, Carole, who’s missed her period while her boyfriend, Bill, is home on military leave, hastily marries him on September 11, 1968, one day before he departs for Vietnam. A small-town girl majoring in physical therapy, Carole transfers to the tumultuous UW¬–Madison campus amidst the Black Student Strike, Teaching Assistants Association Strike, and antiwar protests. In September 1968, Carole finally receives Bill’s first letter written on a plane on his way to Vietnam. It’s a long and challenging year for Carole, studying cadavers in anatomy, and Bill, assigned to “tag and bag” duty when he arrives in Cam Rah Bay. In December 1968, the couple is reacquainted for one week in Hawaii on Bill’s R&R. Carole returns home to dodge horny men while Bill returns to his office job, which doesn’t keep him out of trouble. Communication continues to be difficult for the couple, with written correspondence often delayed and only occasional brief telephone calls made through MARS (Military Auxiliary Radio System) with two ham radio operators listening in. Although the newlyweds believe they still love one another, the war, time, and distance separating them strain their fragile relationship, leading to arguments at times and at other times to touching love poems. Bill returns to “the real world” physically all in one piece, but he soon experiences his first traumatic nightmare during September 1969. For the next thirty years, a demon monster torments Bill. After reading an article in her P.T. journal, Carole finally recognizes Bill’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms and seeks counseling from the local Veterans Administration. The book ends in 2007 in an Epilogue with the couple questioning the morality of war while attending an Iraq antiwar rally with their fifteen-year-old twin daughters. The book includes thirty-one photographs, a line-drawn map of Vietnam, a glossary of terms, and extensive endnotes of historical value. In 2023, The Hardest Year was awarded a Finalist Medal in Military History by the International Book Awards. The Wagener’s memoir is a love story, a war story, and a coming-of-age story written from the point of view of a girl left behind fifty-five years ago, and it is still relevant today.
December 29, 2023
This fast-paced, heart-tugging story follows two young adults who try to find hope, identity, and love during the turmoil of the 60's. Thrown into roles without a rule book, Carole and Bill unite briefly before being ripped apart by a foreign war they don't entirely understand. Their rather hasty decision to marry before Bill's deployment would test all their ideas about commitment and intimacy, with neither of them sure when--or if--they'd see each other again. Or even want to.
Sometimes funny, often painful, but always from the heart, this memoir of letters, photos, and narration, proves to be a story that needed to be told.
Sometimes funny, often painful, but always from the heart, this memoir of letters, photos, and narration, proves to be a story that needed to be told.
June 28, 2023
The title correctly states the storyline. There is no agenda, no life lessons, no self-improvement. The storyline is two "kids" slugging it out, not against each other but for each other in the face of self-doubt. It is about climbing a bald mountain with no views, putting one foot in front of the other, not looking over your shoulder for help because there is none, not veering off the straight and narrow, and not taking the wrong path at each switchback. It is about courage and fortitude. It is a reminder that crap happens but that LOVE can still conquer all.
May 22, 2023
Great book told through letters between a GI and young wife. I loved the back and forth between the two stories and the blunt honesty between them. Beautifully produced book, polished and first rate in every way. An untold story of Vietnam. Highly recommend.
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October 30, 2023Love letters between two newly married and separated (by Vietnam war) - a memoir
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews