Assigned to an office job in Dau Tieng as a communications liaison for combat units in the 25th Infantry Division, Mike Boehm was not on the front lines during his eighteen-month tour of duty from 1968 to 1969. He believed he had escaped the trauma that combat veterans had experienced, so he was surprised when, after a trip back to Vietnam more than twenty years later, waves of grief and rage washed over him as he struggled to make sense of the war's devastation of Vietnam. Where he eventually found redemption and peace was unexpected – the Quang Ngai Province Women's Union, a group which worked to secure micro-credit loans for women in My Lai. After working with the Vietnam Veterans Restoration Project (VVRP) building health clinics in Vietnam, Boehm, a native of Mauston, Wisconsin, founded the Madison Indochina Support Group to help fund the My Lai project. As he got to know women in My Lai and throughout Quang Ngai province, he saw firsthand the trauma of war. He met women such as Nguyen Thi Lan, who, at the age of fourteen, lost a leg after stepping on a landmine. He spent time with Pham Thi Huong, who still broke down in tears every time she told the story of losing her aunt and two of her children during a U.S. raid on the village of Truong Khanh.

Through the pain and suffering, Boehm saw the women's resilience – and they, not John Wayne or other warrior figures, became his heroes. “Women suffered as much as the men did, but their suffering goes unacknowledged,” he said. “In the midst of all the killing, they still made the meals for their family.…I hold their strength in awe, that they were not only able to survive, but also to focus all their energies to moving ahead.” To honor his support of the My Lai project, the Quang Ngai Province Women's Union made Boehm an honorary member.