SOUTH PARIS — The VFW Post 9787, 58 East Main St., is hosting a meet-and-greet and book signing with author and Vietnam veteran Claire Starnes from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 20, at the Post. This event is open to the public.

Starnes’ book “Women Vietnam Veterans: Our Untold Stories” was published in September 2015. It is the culmination of 17 years of research collecting stories of the non-nurse servicewomen stationed in Vietnam from 1962-1973. It is of interest to all who would like to know more of the history of the women service members who were stationed in Vietnam.

Starnes was born in Maine in 1944 and enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps in 1963. She volunteered for service in Vietnam in 1969,and was posted in Long Binh and then in Saigon, returning to Ft. Monroe in 1971. She married in 1973 and left active service but remained as an Army civilian employee until she retired in 1994 with 31 years of government service. During that time she earned her degree in journalism, was an assistant editor on a technical magazine and then editor for a worldwide technical journal.

In 1999, Starnes and her roommate from Vietnam started a nonprofit to identify and locate all the non-nurse women Vietnam veterans. During the first year they located 700 of the estimated 1,200. This small group held many jobs, but until recently were easily lost among the approximately 10,000 woman who served as nurses in-country during the Vietnam conflict.

Claire Starnes (Submitted photo)

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