Download PDF Home before Morning The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam Lynda Van Devanter Books

Product details Paperback 336 pages Publisher University of Massachusetts Press; Reprint edition (July 12, 2001) Language English ISBN-10 1558492984

Home before Morning The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam Lynda Van Devanter Books Reviews

• That's the question Lynda Van Devanter asks over and over in the course of this memoir, the centerpiece of which is her year (June 1969 to June 1970) as a surgical nurse in Vietnam, principally at the 71st Evacuation Hospital, Pleiku. She went to Vietnam a relatively carefree, healthy twenty-two-year-old. She returned damaged on the inside, both psychologically and physically. She died in 2002 at age fifty-five from an autoimmune, collagen-vascular disorder caused by exposure to toxic chemicals in Vietnam. Yet one more casualty of America's adventure in Vietnam. And for what?
  
  Outside the personal realm of family and friends, Van Devanter had three notable accomplishments in her life about which she could be proud. The first consists of her work as an extremely dedicated nurse, both in Vietnam (where in addition to American soldiers her patients also included Vietnamese soldiers and citizens) and back home in the U.S. over a two-decade nursing career. For some of those patients she was the person most responsible for saving their life. Her second notable achievement was as National Women's Director of the Vietnam Veterans of America, where she was instrumental in raising recognition of the contributions of women Vietnam veterans and in securing benefits for them. Third, there is HOME BEFORE MORNING, which deserves a place in any collection of Vietnam memoirs, especially because it is from a relatively unknown and unappreciated perspective.
  
  Van Devanter went to war as a gung-ho believer in the United States and its war in Vietnam. Disillusionment came gradually, but it had enveloped her midway through her year in-country. It was due largely to repeated encounters with devastating, gruesome wounds, some of which are horrifically detailed in the book. The hardest to deal with were the crispy critters - those charred by napalm, surely one of humankind's most insidious inventions. One can easily understand a surgeon muttering, after operating non-stop amidst blood and moans and screams for forty-eight hours, "I'd like to have Richard Nixon here for one week." Compounding the surreal hellishness of Van Devanter's year in Nam was the bureaucratic ineptitude, stupidity, and callousness so pervasive in the U.S. military.
  
  HOME BEFORE MORNING was first published in 1983, qualifying it, to quote another reviewer, as "the grandmother of female Viet Nam accounts". This 2001 edition from the University of Massachusetts Press includes an eight-page afterword by Van Devanter, written shortly before she died. The book is very easy to read, although the writing is somewhat slick and conventional, often using rather stock formulations (e.g., "I'd be lying if I said there aren't still difficult times"). Much of the dialogue obviously was reconstructed or re-imagined, and there are internal indications that some of the events themselves may to some extent have been fabricated. I see that several other reviews or the comments to them claim that some of the incidents in the book are either exaggerated or happened to someone else. Still, I tend to believe that on the whole HOME BEFORE MORNING is a realistic portrayal of a surgical nurse in a field hospital in Vietnam, and as such it is worth reading.
• Tells of the perils that all endured during the Viet Nam conflict. Suffering is Suffering!! Without the nurses and the gentleness, professionalism and caring there would have been many more Casuaities. I SALUTE ALL THE FEMALES THAT TOOK CARE OF US. Excellent Book
• Having enlisted just as the last American military members were being evacuated from Vietnam, I have always wondered what it was really like for a woman serving during this campaign. This book literally shocked my socks off and opened my eyes! Ms. Van Devanter's writing style relays the raw truth of her experience and is written is such a way as to create vivid pictures in my mind as I read through this book. The accuracy of her story has been confirmed to me by other Vietnam Veterans who were there. It should be a full scale movie, not just the basis for a TV Show (China Beach). It is heart wrenching, dramatic and very emotionally moving. She was a true hero in my view. I am sad that I did not have a chance to meet her before she left this life. Rest In Peace Lt. Lynda Van Devanter - you have my respect and admiration.
  If have ever wanted to experience the reality of Vietnam, you should read this book!
• Not my favorite on Vietnam, never-the-less Lynda provides a unique first person perspective on adversity and the outrageous conditions the trauma response teams experience at the operating tables, from piecing guys back together from battle wounds to wounds from tigers, it helps communicate the meaning of the 'Back in the World' feeling and the giant sucking sound of the war trying to pull you back into it as you board your chopper ride out on your last day in hell. I was left feeling 'glad it was not me' and some empathy for Lynda who I felt cracked to some degree from the experiences.
• This book tells a side of the Vietnam story that isn't frequently told. Van Devanter tells the story simply, yet compellingly. I had read this book when it was first published, loaned it to a relative, who loaned it to someone else, who lost it. I liked it enough to purchase it again (at a higher price for the paperback than the original hardback)! When I recently read the book, I enjoyed it as much as I did back in the early 80s. Having just read an obituary of Lynda Va Devanter from the New York Times, I realized that "Home Before Morning," was one of the inspirations for the TV series "China Beach." I highly recommend this book.
• One of the most incredible books I have read in a very long time. I simply couldn't put it down. This is an excellent glimpse of history through the eyes of a once carefree, brilliant, young woman. She sets off on an exciting journey as a military nurse only to be thrust into the chaos of war in Vietnam. She is candid, funny, and keeps your interest throughout the entire story. I cried at the horrors she experienced and felt as though I was standing right there in her shoes as she told the story. A very good read.
• The beginning is very boring in the beginning but was so interesting once she went across seas. Don't judge it by the beginning it's definetly worth the read.