Authors Taylor Kiland and Judy Gray join {pages} to discuss their new book | Monday, May 22nd at 6:30 pm
{pages} a bookstore is pleased to welcome Taylor Kiland and Judy Gray, the co-authors of Unwavering: The Wives Who Fought to Ensure No Man is Left Behind on May 22nd at 6:30 pm. Wine, cheese and good conversation will be served. We hope you can join us. This is a free event but RSVPs are appreciated. RSVP HERE
About the book:
Unwavering is the compelling true story of the women who waged an epic home front battle to ensure our nation leaves no
man behind. When some of America’s military men are captured or go missing during the Vietnam War, a small group of military wives become their champions.
Never had families taken on diplomatic roles during wartime, nor had the fate of our POWs and missing men been a nationwide concern. In cinematic detail, authors Taylor Baldwin Kiland and Judy Silverstein Gray plunge you directly into the political maneuvering the women navigated, onto the international stage they shared with world leaders, and through the landmark legacy they created.
In the 1960s, most women were denied credit cards, car loans, and mortgages without a spouse or father
to co-sign. Military wives had greater restrictions. When a late-night knock on the door by a military
chaplain brought dreaded news, “Your husband is missing in action," they are warned to keep quiet.
In Unwavering: The Wives Who Fought to Ensure No Man Is Left Behind (Knox Press; May 2nd, 2023), authors
and military veterans Taylor Baldwin Kiland and Judy Silverstein Gray document the little-known history
and legendary perseverance of a small band of women who, against all odds, forever changed US foreign
policy. Amidst the tumult of antiwar protests and civil rights marches, a cadre of military wives became
accidental activists, galvanizing the nation around the plight of their husbands—some 1,500 men held
captive or missing in Southeast Asia.
In 1965, Sybil Stockdale had been married for two decades when she received the dreaded news. Her
husband, a Navy commander, was missing. She too was urged to keep silent about his predicament. “Leave
diplomacy to the professionals,” the U.S. government admonished. Frustrated by her government's lack of
progress, she reached out to other military wives who shared her pain: Candy Parish, barely twenty-three
and the mother of a three-week-old son when her husband went missing; Pat Mearns, living in Japan with
her two daughters when her husband was shot down on Veterans Day; and Carol McCain, the mother of
three young children, whose second husband, the future Senator John McCain, was imprisoned at the
Hanoi Hilton. These military wives were not content to simply commiserate over coffee and were
determined to “Go Public.”
With Mrs. Stockdale as their guiding force and de facto den mother, this tribe of ladies set out to raise
public awareness of POWs and MIAs, overcoming an indifferent political bureaucracy and compelling
the new president, Richard M. Nixon, to act. Forming their own organization, the National League of
Families, they launched campaigns and rallied thousands of military families to send telegrams en masse
to the White House on Inauguration Day. Traveling together, they confronted the North Vietnamese
delegation at the Paris Peace Accords. Defying military officials, they met with State Department officials
and foreign leaders, and spoke with the press. These brave, dedicated women and their allies made
bringing home our POWs and MIAs the focus of the Paris peace negotiations. The men’s release was the
only victory of the Vietnam War.
“Leave no man behind”—in times of war, it has become a mantra that the United States holds sacred. We
now expend unlimited resources on this strategic imperative, deploying special forces to rescue just one
POW, whether held in Bosnia, Somalia, or Iraq. It is no accident that we ended our longest war, in
Afghanistan, without a single POW or MIA. Yet this has not always been the case. In wars past, there
have been thousands of unrecovered missing men—72,000 in World War II and 7,500 in Korea. Placing a
priority on recovering all our missing men began during the Vietnam War—thanks to a small group of
fiercely determined women.
Their legacy endures. The United States now spends $130 million annually to comb the globe for every
missing man, fulfilling America’s promise to Leave No Man Behind. It was a promise made to a handful of
military wives more than fifty years ago. But this is more than a wives’ tale. It is the quintessential
American story of how a group of silenced women found their voice, forever changing the course of
history.
About the authors:
Taylor Baldwin Kiland is a writer and ghostwriter specializing in military non-fiction.
Taylor has written, co-authored, ghost-written, or edited eighteen books, including three
about our nation’s Vietnam POWs: Unwavering: The Wives Who Fought to Ensure No Man is
Left Behind, Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton: Six Characteristics of High-Performance Teams, and
Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Thirty Years Later.
A former naval officer—the third generation in her family to serve in the Navy, Taylor was
raised in Coronado, California, and Alexandria, Virginia with many of the Vietnam POW
and MIA families. She spent twenty years in the private sector as a marketing
communications professional before starting her writing career. She holds a master’s degree
in marketing communications from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in
journalism from the University of Southern California. She now lives in Old Town
Alexandria, Virginia, with her husband and their daughter.
Judy Silverstein Gray has written numerous military profiles and feature articles about women leaders for news outlets, including The Tampa Tribune, publishing six books for young readers—five on military topics—and has work appearing in two literary anthologies. She has worked as a public information officer in both the private and non-profit sectors and teaches public health communication to graduate students.
The third generation of her family to serve in the military, Judy is a retired Coast Guard chief petty officer who has had a front row seat to historic events through her public affairs work. Throughout her pursuits, she has drawn on her fascination with storytelling to craft narratives about innovators and unlikely trailblazers. She lives with her husband in Tampa, Florida.
