e-Book Every Effort: A True Story download

Let me start out by stating that I am as biased as one can be. Barbara Mullen Keenan is my sister.

Because of this bias I'll not comment on the quality of the book, though I believe it to be excellent, but rather will give a brief synopsis which would otherwise be lacking from this listing.

In the spring of 1966 Barbara was the wife of a career Marine captain and as loyal to the Corp as her husband. On the day Bill was to fly his last mission before returning home, Barbara had already left her hometown where she and her two young boys were spending the agonizing year apart from their husband and father. She was beginning her journey to her new home she would once again share with Bill.

Her life, and the lives of her boys, were shattered forever when, on the first day of that trip, two Marine officers knocked on the door of her motel room. They told her that Bill had been shot down just inside Laos and his rescue radio had been heard just after his parachute landed. "Every Effort" would be made to learn his fate and effect his return.

Over the next seven years Barbara grew from a quiet Marine wife to a dynamic leader of a group of MIA wives who campaigned ceaselessly for an end to the war and the return of the POW's and MIA's from SE Asia. Interviewed in Time magazine and on the platform with George McGovern, she was at the heart of the struggle to end this endless and winless war and bring home those who had paid such a great price for their country.

But when that war ended and the POW's came home, Bill was not among them. Though Nixon had proclaimed that "All Americans held in SE Asia" would be returned, NOT ONE of the over 600 MIA's from Laos ever returned.

That many of them must have been murdered after capture is a dirty secret our government still refuses to acknowledge, lest it interfere with our share of the Asian marketplace. And so, now thirty years after her husband was shot down, Barbara still corresponds regularly with the Defense Department in an attempt to learn the truth.

My brother, James J. Hill, flew with Bill Mullen. Late last year he read Every Effort and passed it on to me. In addition to being a story about betrayed soldiers and deceived familes, it is a story about what went wrong in the U.S. Government.
After reading the book, I have been able to reflect upon and talk about my time in Vietnam more than I had in the previous three decades. Yet even now, I do not think I comprehend, let alone appreciate, what Barbara Mullen Keenan and all the other loved ones of men as brave and faithful as Bill Mullen were put through. I was a soldier at war. But Mrs. Keenan - and thousands of other wives, parents, children and siblings, involuntary participants all - were at the mercy of politicians and bureaucrats. Bravery and heroism are much more often the result of circumstance than of intentions or planning. Her courage, loyalty, and steadfastness over the years, even decades, have been extraordinary. America owes Mrs. Keenan a great debt.
Her efforts to get help for the prisoners in Laos and Vietnam have been valiant. Beyond that, her willingness to openly discuss the inattention and callousness of government and citizenry towards the fate of Bill Mullen and the other prisoners, how it infuriated her sense of decency and tormented her soul, is a lesson for men and women everywhere. Clearly, there is need and justification for secrecy in military confrontation. However, denying the public the opportunity to participate in a decision to commit American forces by hiding the reasons, the objectives and above all the risks, is not only immoral, but a path to disaster. A string of politicians from Kennedy to Nixon, their advisers from McNamara to Kissinger, and scores of underlings were certain that they knew everything, but they were afraid to tell the American public anything. That was the source of the fiasco we call Vietnam. If we do not acknowledge her experience, if we do not heed her message, the tragedy of those forsaken men will be repeated.

In 1961 1st Lieutenant William F. Mullen was instrumental in teaching me to fly at Pensacola. He was only four years older than me, but he was the greatest teacher I have known in any field. Aviation has been my life, but I would never have earned wings without Bill Mullen's kindness, devotion and skill.
In 1966 I learned that he had been downed in Laos.
When the POW's were returned, I sadly noted that Bill Mullen was not among them.
Very recently I learned of this book - Every Effort - written by the wife who did everything humanly possible and much, much more to find him.
I love books. I read all the time. My favorite author is Shakespeare. I have never read a more powerful or more moving tale than "Every Effort" - and it is devastatingly true.
If this is the best America can do for good Marines - true heroes - like Bill Mullen, then we are in deep, deep trouble.
A great, great book. Someday when people can face these truths with less pain, this book will become a classic.

I knew Bill Mullen (briefly) while stationed in the Far East. He was a fine Marine, who will forever be in my thoughts & prayers. I wish every American would read this book and others like it.

I had the pleasure of working for Bill Mullen in DaNang in 1966. He came into the office after hours the evening before his final mission to retrieve something and we had a very warm and interesting conversation before he returned to his quarters. I just learned of and read the wonderful book by his wife Barbara a few days after visiting the "Travelling Wall" to visit Bill. A great book about a great Marine, RIP my friend.