Charlotte’s War and its abridged edition The Hidden Front Line chronicle one remarkable woman’s fight across three wars, spotlighting the often-overlooked power of women behind the front lines. Below is an excerpt from Charlotte’s War by J. Lawrence Graham.

Cambridge, MA, 1944

What fun, being away from home, and doing the boogie-woogie! They all looked forward to getting the boys into the game, because the best swing involved airtime, lifts, rolls, spins, and more.

The graduate student resident assistant waited for “Bugle Boy” to end, then yelled down the hall, “Long distance for Fletcher.” That can’t be good, Charlotte thought. She ran downstairs to the phone. It was her mom. And it wasn’t good. It was the feared worst. Mom started to talk through her tears, then just gave up.

After a long pause her dad spoke, also sounding upset. “Char, we just got a telegram from the navy. Chris was shot down over the Philippines. He is listed as missing in action. Let’s pray he’s okay. We’re so sorry to pass this along, but we knew you would want to know right away. We’ll let you know when we hear anything else, of course. Anything. Right now, all we know about is the telegram.”

Laguna Beach, CA, 1948

At their favorite part of the beach just north of Crystal Cove, which was almost always deserted, John put knee to sand and simply said, “I love you so much. Will you marry me?”

It seemed to her that he thought it was less a question and more a foregone conclusion. “John, I love you so much. I truly want to marry you and have children with you and live the rest of my life with you—but not quite yet.”

John was crushed, embarrassed, and a bit angry, if he was being honest. With brow deeply creased, he sat down in the cool sand. “So, Charlotte, what’s your time line?” he asked stiffly.

She sat directly across from him so they could see each other in the moonlight. “For the next four years, our careers will tend to have us apart. You’ll be gone half the time and halfway around the world. I’m okay with that. But in 1950 or 1951 I’m going to have to spend a year doing my dissertation field work in a place I know not where. So, I intend to say yes. No, I’m dying to say yes! But I have one condition: I don’t want to have children until I’ve finished my PhD. So, I guess I’m asking for a four- or five-year engagement.”

John’s second mistake of the night—the much larger of the two—was not thinking through his response. “Why is your career so important to you? Your job will be mostly in the home,” he blurted out.

UC Berkeley, 1951

Psychology can be hilarious at times. In the class we’re currently focusing on Sigmund Freud. The prof had us each study a different segment of his work and report to the seminar. Then we discussed. Burley was assigned the topic of penis envy—that’s funny by itself.

“So big Ben begins, ‘I hope it’s all right to start out this quite serious topic with a little humor.’ He ignored the professor’s raised eyebrows. ‘This little girl and a boy about the same age are playing games out in the neighborhood. It ends up the girl is better at everything—running, jumping, throwing rocks, and so on. The little boy’s pride is suffering, so he says to her, “You may be able to do all that better than me, but you don’t have one of these.” He pulls down his pants and points to his penis. She looks down and realizes she is uncompetitive in that department. So, she starts crying and runs into her house, leaving him with a big grin. Not two minutes later she pops out her front door with a smile even bigger than his. He asks her, “What are you so happy about—a minute ago you were bawling like a baby.” And she says, “I went in and told my mother what you said. And my mother told me not to worry about it and told me to say to you, since I have one of these, pointing at her vagina, I can have as many of those as I want!”’”

“Ben Burley is a smart man,” John admitted, chortling.

San Francisco

Later in 1968, Charlotte helped organize a remarkable protest in Golden Gate Park. She and about fifty other mothers of draft-age boys lay down, totally naked, on a grassy knoll and spelled out NO DRAFT with their bodies. The press was invited to take pictures. As the spokesperson, Professor Charlotte Shipwright told TV interviewers and reporters from the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle, “We did it because of the children. This protest was sparked by the vivid photograph of the naked nine-year-old Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack on her and other children. We thank the photographer, Nick Ut of the Associated Press, for his brave journalism. Our naked protest today is in her honor, in part.

“But we are also protesting something else that is quite disturbing, the drafting of young American boys just twice the girl’s age. Our land-of-the-free American government is taking away the freedom of our sons by the hundreds of thousands. It is literally coercing them to learn how to, practice how to, and then kill innocent people like her.

Aboard the USS Kittyhawk, off the coast of Vietnam, 1972

Jack started speaking directly toward Crutcher. “Sir, I refuse to participate in this mission.”

Everyone in the room was stunned. Crutcher shot back, “What the fuck are you talking about, boy?”

Jack was adamant. “I refuse to participate in this mission. It is illegal for me to follow an illegal order.”

Crutcher was now red-in-the face furious. “My order is not illegal, and by God, you’ll follow it!”

Jack responded calmly, “I suppose the matter of the legality of your order will ultimately be decided at my court-martial. I am satisfied with that prospect.”

Haiphong Harbor, Vietnam, 1972

Perfect, it’s inside-a-buried-coffin black, was his first thought as the thick, dark water enveloped him. His second thought was, I’ve been snookered! Fuck this!

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