What do you think?
Rate this book
Losing Chuck, Finding Sallie: The Thirty-Six Year Odyssey of a Wife Whose Husband Was MIA in Vietnam
Sallie Stratton thought she knew what she was getting into when she married a military man--a life of following him wherever he would go. What she hadn’t counted on was that the day would come that she would not only be unable to follow him, she wouldn’t even be able to find him--he had gone missing in Vietnam. It would be 7 years before his presumptive death was made, 28 years before his remains were recovered and another 2 years before she brought him home. In those years when Sallie lost Chuck, she found herself, coming into her own, from a mother and homemaker to an activist, a student, a career woman and an adventurer.
"After her husband's plane crashed in Laos during the Vietnam War, Sallie Stratton was convinced he was still alive and a prisoner of war. As years went by, she struggled with how she and her three young sons, living in Dallas, could move forward without leaving Chuck behind. As emotionally powerful a story ever written about the families of the missing and unaccounted-for in Vietnam, Sallie's journey ultimately takes her on a path of her own choosing: A way forward without forgetting her past."
Dave Tarrant, Enterprise Writer for the Dallas Morning News
316 pages, Paperback
Published September 4, 2019
1 person is currently reading
16 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Read
March 3, 2021I loved this book. Met Sallie at a Palm Springs Air Museum event to honor folks who wore the POW/MIA Bracelets. I wore one and meeting Sallie was just a joy.. a lovely lady and the book is very well written and very interesting. To wait all those years to get knowledge of her Husband just made me think over and over What a Woman! xxoo
July 23, 2025
Sallie Stratton is no ordinary woman.
She is an activist, a trouble-maker, a spiritual pathfinder, and a devoted mother.
Not only is this memoir masterfully written, with easy-to-read stories, flashbacks, and anecdotes of the journey to find peace during decades of crippling uncertainty, it is an integral examination of the human experience when coping with loss and finding peace with the self.
This memoir reaches far beyond the navigation of the harrowing encounter that follows the declaration of a soldier who is M.I.A. and opts to illuminate the comprehensive psychological toll it takes on a family by illustrating the many other ways we must grapple with loss.
Following Sallie Stratton's journey into activism, academia, her conflicts with her religious convictions as they intersect with her sociopolitical beliefs is an experience all its own that never drifts into an egoistic lens; reading this book felt like I was making a friend. A friend I couldn't be prouder of.
I hope you too can make friends with Sallie and read her memoir.
She is an activist, a trouble-maker, a spiritual pathfinder, and a devoted mother.
Not only is this memoir masterfully written, with easy-to-read stories, flashbacks, and anecdotes of the journey to find peace during decades of crippling uncertainty, it is an integral examination of the human experience when coping with loss and finding peace with the self.
This memoir reaches far beyond the navigation of the harrowing encounter that follows the declaration of a soldier who is M.I.A. and opts to illuminate the comprehensive psychological toll it takes on a family by illustrating the many other ways we must grapple with loss.
Following Sallie Stratton's journey into activism, academia, her conflicts with her religious convictions as they intersect with her sociopolitical beliefs is an experience all its own that never drifts into an egoistic lens; reading this book felt like I was making a friend. A friend I couldn't be prouder of.
I hope you too can make friends with Sallie and read her memoir.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews