Every Effort: A True Story

By Barbara Mullen Keenan

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312271298
• ISBN13: 9780312271299
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Length: 351 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 10.0" x 2.0"

Customer Reviews

War Novel Holds Shocking Truth

After reading "Every Effort" as a requirement for a high school class, I was surprised on how the story affected my emotions. I immediatley felt the pain that Barbara and her family had experienced. This book depicts the raw truth of how a family suffers when a loved one is sent to war. Barbara Mullen was an extremely strong woman who supported her two small children during a time in her life where her future held too many unknown answers. This book not only held the truth, but it also demonstrated how a strong person can move on after a devastating experience. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested not only in the Vietnam War, but also in the experiences that unravel in the families of soldiers.

Devastatingly powerful personal history

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.

The story of a courageous woman's fight to find her husband

I read this book for the first time when I was nine and loved it. I also have a biased opinion because I have always thought of Barbara as my aunt. Her husband, Billy, was my mom's first cousin. My mom was very close to Billy and thought of him as a brother. I have always admired Barbara for her literary talent and her devotion to her family. Today, Oct. 15, 1998, I will be standing in my mother's place at the opening of the traveling Vietnam Wall memorial at the Brockton VA hospital. Billy's name is on this wall, and he will be honored today. Even though I never met Billy, I feel like I know him from reading this book and from the countless stories that I have heard over the years. I have given my copy of this book to many people I know and all of them loved this book. This book successfully depicts the struggle that many POW/MIA families endured and unfortunately still do, in order to find out what happened to their loved ones.

A great testimony of the love of one woman for her husband.

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.

A wife and mother struggles with the agony of an MIA husband

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.