Bound by Duty: Military Wives, The National League of Families, and the Central Identification Laboratory of Hawaii (CILHI)

Abstract

In 1972, amid the Vietnam War, Anne Montgomery Nagle Hart, a young military wife and mother, received word that her husband’s plane had been shot down over the Laotian jungle. The military instructed her to patiently wait for answers and trust that they had everything under control. Desperate for information about her missing husband, she joined the National League of Families. In doing so, Anne stepped out of her role as a subservient military wife into that of an advocate for missing servicemen, helping catalyze improvements in military identification efforts in the United States. Set among the backdrop of the societal and political turmoil of the Vietnam War, this case highlights the unique relationship between military wives and the United States government. As both a loyal military wife and the loving partner of a missing serviceman, Anne finds that her responsibilities to her country and husband conflict. This case demonstrates how Anne navigates competing expectations that ask her to challenge the authority of the highly gendered institution of the military to seek justice for her husband.