Don't Let the Boys See You Cry: Good Night, Irene

Coffee and donuts for servicemen - AP, from NPRs website

I taught US History but never heard of the "donut dollies" who followed troops in England, France, and Germany. They dispensed coffee and wise cracks, played jazz bands, and listened to private confessions.

Novelist Luis Alberto Urrea created fiction on the framework of experiences his mother wrote about in her journals. Until she died, he knew little about her story, except that she suffered from nightmares every night of her life.

Urrea builds his story with laughs, friendship, and a rom-com perfect romance with a (fictional) cocksure pilot named Hans "Handyman." Beyond that, the arc of the story follows the trajectory of Allied advances and setbacks.

Irene's commander tells her, "Above all, don't let them see you cry." The part that moves me to tears, again and again, is the gratitude that men express, as in this letter:

I was trying to hide my terror from the other guys, but all I could think of was home. Then I saw you.... I know I was just a face among hundreds of faces, but you looked at me in the eye and gave me coffee and made me laugh

Another side to that story is how many young pilots don't come back. The women's real job was to be "the final blessing from home."

One very tough encounter for Irene, and for me, is a few minutes at the bedside of a horribly burnt soldier so that he won't have to die alone.

I couldn't tell you what happened when, or name more than a handful of characters, but I also couldn't wait each night to get back into the world of Irene and her tall driver Dorothy.