The Fourteenth of September

Judy Blue Eyes comes of age at one of the most difficult times in U.S. history. Amid 1960s music, Vietnam antiwar protests, rampant drug use, and free love she is forced to keep a deep secret from her fellow college students as she navigates choices in her quest to determine who she truly wants to be. Praise goes to author Dragonette for realistically capturing this heartbreaking era in her debut novel that kept me rapt throughout until the riveting thoughtful conclusion.

Dragonette’s well-crafted novel opens in September 1969 when Nixon’s Vietnam War draft lottery is on the horizon. Through the eyes of Judy, Dragonette’s protagonist, the reader becomes immersed in the antiwar movement on the campus of Central Illinois University. History comes alive as her characters struggle to define themselves, their country, and their futures.

The Fourteenth of September is a must read for anyone who lived through the era, and anyone interested in 20th century American history and the politics that shaped a generation.

I loved reading this gracefully written debut novel. It’s a 1960s story with a very original premise: a young woman who’s on a military scholarship to college secretly joins her campus’s anti-Vietnam war movement. Straddled between the two worlds, Judy must keep her anti-war activities from her military superiors while keeping her military scholarship a secret from her anti-war friends. Along the way we get clear insights into the situation faced by so many young men during the 1960s, when “coming of age” really meant “coming of draft age” and facing the dreaded lottery system. Judy is able to see the two different sides (the very real benefits of a military scholarship vs. the moral rightness of the student protestors) as well as all the shades of grey in between. This creates tension and dissonance in her, but it’s clear her bravery and nonconformism are character assets that will serve her well in life. The situations are realistic, and the conversations among the well-drawn characters are witty and authentic. Besides being an enjoyably suspenseful book (what will happen with Judy’s scholarship? What will happen with her anti-war activities?), The Fourteenth of September casts a new light on a dark period of our history. Highly recommended.

Rita Dragonette, the author of “The Fourteenth of September” writes a memorable, thought-provoking, captivating and intriguing novel. The genres for this novel are fiction and historical fiction. The timeline for this story takes place during the Vietnam War. The author describes her dramatic characters as complex and complicated. I appreciate the author’s vivid descriptions of the college life and events in this story. The adversities and frustrations during this turbulent time brought protests and many conflicting protests.

Judy Talton is 19 years old on September 14, 1969. In order to be able to afford college, Judy has been saving money for years and is encouraged by her military mother to apply for an ROTC scholarship to become a nurse. Judy does make it to college but becomes obsessed with a group of protesters against the Vietnam War. By joining the activities of this group, Judy not only could lose her scholarship but could be considered AWOL.

There will be a lottery drawn, and young men will be drafted into the army that gets the lowest numbers on their birthday. Judy realizes the date drawn is her birthday, which is number one, and if she were a man, she would be the first to go to Vietnam. Question of conscience, the meaning of war, the right to choose, and women vs. men’s rights are discussed in this story.

I remember many of the songs that the author mentions of that time, and I do remember how conflicted young men felt, as did their families and significant others. I remember the college protests and the National Guard getting involved. What a tragic time in history. I would highly recommend this significant and thought-provoking story.

From the moment I began reading this novel, I was captivated. I found having the novel take place during a school year at a university during the Vietnam War was a point of view that I was not anticipating, but thoroughly enjoyed. I really enjoy historical fiction and this book did not disappoint.

The plot contained several stories centering around the main character Judy: the overall relationship between Judy and her mother; deciding whether her future will be dictated by her mother or Judy herself; forming deep friendships and joining clubs that opposed the Vietnam War while being part of the very institution that was helping her receive an education – the Army; and Judy maturing into the person that she really wants to be and the impact that has on everything as well as childhood friendships.

Judy’s perspective, in addition to her mother bringing a military background in the family, is not one that automatically comes to mind when thinking about this historical time. Throughout the novel, many views either for or against the war were challenged and discussed. You could really grow as well with Judy’s character.

The in depth description of the story line was crucial to understanding what each character thought and felt. The reader felt that they were right beside Judy during the entire story, gaining a sense of experiences of youth both female and male during that time. I also enjoyed how Judy and the other characters would debate different perspectives about life and the Vietnam War which allowed the reader to think outside the box.

The ending was brilliant in that it was the beginning of a new chapter for all of the characters as they faced their own challenges head on. The only thing missing that I would have loved to read was an epilogue giving the reader a glimpse of what to come. However, the author, Rita Dragonette is clever to allow the reader to think about what could be the next chapter in both Judy’s life and her fellow friends, students and adult characters.

This book is an excellent choice for any book club in that there are so many great conversations to be had! I highly recommend this wonderful novel, The Fourteenth of September.

The Fourteenth of September is a love story to 1969, with all its pain, confusion, unbridled youthful idealism, and the politics that are bound to insert themselves into any group. It recreates a fully realized immersion into the tumultuous era of the 1960s, with its conflicts of loyalty and conscience.
The novel’s point of view is especially meaningful given the protagonist, Judy, is both a woman (just as the women’s movement was about to take off) and an ROTC scholarship recipient at the height of the Vietnam War and the year the draft lottery begins. Judy must struggle with a choice: join the anti-war movement and risk losing her scholarship or ignore her conscience and stick with the ROTC and its support of the war. As her mother keeps reminding her, she could lose it all if she gets involved in anti-war protests.

Rita Dragonette expertly creates characters and events with whom those of us who lived through the era can identify. Those who didn’t live through this painful part of our history will be whisked back in time into a page-turning story of the conflicting forces and beliefs with which the youth of the 1960s had to reckon, just as they were on the cusp of adulthood. Highly recommended!

A realistic story of college students during the height of the Vietnam War. This was a well written story that captures an era from a point of view we rarely see: that of a young woman torn between her mother’s expectations of her daughters life in the military and her growing awareness of the true impact of the war. Judy encounters a variety of characters with complex motivations that gradually unfold and vividly reveal the times. This is a great book for anyone wanting insight into the life of young people during this era facing war, escalating deaths, and the draft.

The courage of taking a stand against the Viet Nam war

A story well -told about the tension that the Viet Nam War caused on college campuses in 1969. Rita Dragonette’s characters come to life as the confusion about standing up against the war has real life consequences. This novel is unique in that it is written from a young girl’s point of view. . Well done.

The Fourteenth of September by Rita Dragonette is rooted in Dragonette’s personal experience in 1969 and 1970 when daily body counts from Vietnam and the looming Draft Lottery was met by youth anti-war protests, culminating in the horror of the Kent State massacre.

The protagonist is a young woman on a WRAIN scholarship to become an army nurse, her meal ticket out of her dead-end town. But Judy decides she must understand the war and her values first by becoming involved with the campus Freaks in the anti-war movement.

For Boomers like me, the novel covers familiar territory, rife with personal associations, from the long hair and the rock music to the political and social events.

The approach is fresh–the story of a young woman grappling with her future, her attitude toward the Vietnam War, pushing herself to determine what she believes.

I got Judy’s motivation.

In 1969 as a high school junior, I wrote anti-war poetry for the school paper but dated a boy in the Civil Air Patrol, the armed service in his future. He needed the structure and discipline CAP offered him, his home life dysfunctional.

In 1970 at a small college campus divided into Greeks, Freaks, and GDIs (God Damed Independents) I found myself friends with a Freak with long hair and long fringed coats, kids who smoked pot, clean-cut Vietnam Vets returned to finish their education, long-haired Vietnam Viets with jaded stories, Sorority girls, and everyone in between. I wanted to know all kinds of people, to be nonjudgmental, but stay true to my values.

But Judy was grappling with more than me; I knew I would not be drafted, while I knew the boys were worried. I felt guilty. But I was ‘safe.’

The post-war generation was not the first or the last to question the judgment and decisions of those in authority. Each generation must find their moral compass, and chose how to respond. Today’s young heroes stand up for gun control and women’s rights and inclusion.

I asked Dragonette questions about her motivation for writing the novel, if it was cathartic to have written the events in fiction, and how her story relates to the current youth-led protests.

I lived through many of the incidents of the time period and, probably because I was always the participant-observer writer, I knew that there were things that happened that absolutely had to be recorded and remembered. I waited years to see if they would be by other novelists, but no.

I had a friend (he’s on my acknowledgments page) who sent me a letter after graduation telling me that there was a story to be told and I was the one to tell it. Well, if you tell someone like me–who is ridiculously responsible something like THAT—it’s quite the monkey on your back.

I’ve always been very interested in the role of women in war. My mother was a nurse in WWII who did really amazing things (i.e. she was in Patton’s Army doing meatball surgery on the front in a tent, helping to liberate Stalag 11 in Germany) and saw far more action than my father, but was undervalued because she was “only a nurse,” versus my father whose life was on the line.

When I heard the stories they didn’t make sense. I had two parents, both of whom were doing something equally patriotic, important, and dangerous, and it didn’t seem logical to value their specific experiences differently.

When it came to the war of my generation I saw the same issues–[women told that] you can’t possibly understand what we men are going through– and I wanted to present a case to make it clear that we are in wars as a generation, a country—not as a gender.

I wanted to pose a female dilemma that was every bit as fraught and intense as the decision that had to be faced by the men of the time (1969-70).

There are two articles in the Featured Articles section of the Media tab in my web site that also talk about this at http://www.ritadragonette.com Specifically, there is a highly-fictionalized version of an actual incident in the book where a vet is dissed in an anti-war meeting. I remember that, and how I felt that someone needed to stop it but it couldn’t be me because I was a girl and no one would listen to me. It was the only time in my life I ever felt like a coward—and yes, writing about it–and the whole book–was cathartic–did help me understand it better as an adult and dissect the impulse. I never let myself feel that way again.

I think we write–which is arduous and why would we choose to do that?–because we have stories that must be told to bear witness, to instruct. When we write we share our personal experience and point of view on an issue we feel is significant and not yet explored.

It’s not therapy (though I’m sure that helps), but it gives value to experience and feelings. I feel that we learn our history from facts and nonfiction but we understand it through narrative.

My story is based on some of the things that happened in my life and some of it was easier to write about than other parts. The mother scenes were excruciating. She wasn’t exactly my mother, but any time you write about a parent real life comes through. I still cry over the fate of certain characters–one was real and another was made up whole-cloth.

I also don’t feel this time in history has been sufficiently covered. Vietnam is the Voldemort of wars–we feel bad because we lost, there were atrocities, we treated our vets badly. So we don’t teach or talk about it. But there are important lessons to be learned.

Thank God for the time frame (it’s been 50 years), Ken Burns, and the availability of unclassified information. Now we can look at it dispassionately, more like WWII.

I’m glad that part of the legacy of Vietnam is that we’ve been extra cautious about getting involved in other conflicts (not totally, but we don’t rush in to save the world) and so far there has never been a draft; we’ve learned that we owe vets the world, etc.

WRAIN [Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing] was like ROTC but I’m not sure the guys had to enlist before graduation; WRAIN members did. They were told it was an unbreakable commitment unless they got pregnant. Part of the absurdity is that you see it really wasn’t. Later I found out more than a few guys got out of ROTC. I also learned that you could get out of WRAIN if you just told them you didn’t want to be a nurse–they didn’t want to be shafted for all that tuition without payback. Lots of Catch 22 stuff still goes on in the military but Judy took it seriously, her dilemma is dead serious–she believed more than they did. Just like the war. Just like young people do and should. What’s the parallel? Guys were drafted and went because they were told they had too. Yet many bought their way out…

See my MS. magazine story (click here to read) about how the activists of my time were similar to the Parkland kids. It says it all. Social media beats the streets. Our issue was the war–there was death (no draft means no marches), and civil rights, early feminism. I love how [today’s young adults] care about climate change (we could barely get Earth Day going in l970), LGBT, etc. As far as women’s rights–it’s an ongoing battle. We should go to war over men trying to control women’s bodies–we are re-litigating issues settled long ago. It’s the hamster wheel of history. We need to go forward not backward.

Progress is hard-won but fragile. If that’s true, we are doomed to the hamster wheel of history and we’re capable of more than that. We can STILL change the world.

Rita Dragonette

I received a free book through a giveaway on the Facebook group American Historical Novels. My review is unbiased.