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Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam | 
 enlarge | Author: Lynda Van Devanter
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $14.55
You Save: $10.40 (42%)
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Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 120721
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 331
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 1558492984
Dewey Decimal Number: 959.70437
EAN: 9781558492981
ASIN: 1558492984
Publication Date: April 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"This incredible story, which plunges us immediately into the bloodiest aspects of the war, is also a suspenseful autobiography that will keep you chewing your fingernails to see if Van Devanter survives any of it at all. She proves herself a natural storyteller. . . . The most extraordinary part in this book is Van Devanter's plight after the war-her attempt to retrieve the love of her family, only to realize they don't want to see her slides, hear her stories; her assignment to menial duties at Walter Reed Army Hospital. . . . How Van Devanter survives all of this to become, incredibly, a stronger person for it is what makes her book so riveting."-San Francisco Chronicle "An awesome, painfully honest look at war through a woman's eyes. Her letters home and startling images of life in a combat zone-surgeons fighting to save a Vietnamese baby wounded in utero, the ever-present stench of napalm-charred flesh, a beloved priest's gentle humor and appalling death, the casual heroism of her colleagues, a Vietnamese 'Papa-san' trying to talk his dead child back to life, a haunting snapshot dropped by a dying soldier with no face-tell the story of a young American's rude initiation to the best and the worst of humanity."-Washington Post "Moving, powerful . . . a healing book."-Ms. Magazine "This book reads like a diary: unguarded, heartfelt. . . . [It] is both moving and valu-able, for reminding us so vividly that war is indeed hell . . . and that its most tested heroes are the doctors and nurses who doggedly labor not just to save life, but also to keep their respect for it, even as their surviving patients are sent out, once more, unto the breach."-Harper's Magazine "In Vietnam, reality hit fast: Van Devanter's plane was fired on when it landed in Saigon; and after three days of adjustment, she was assigned to the 71st Evacuation Hospital, a 'MASH-type facility' near the Cambodian border. There, the casualties, . . . the personal danger, the fatigue, the heat, rain, and mud, the harassment of officers enforcing petty regulations, and above all the meaninglessness of American involvement rapidly put an end to Van Devanter's blind patriotism, her innocence, and her youth. . . . Van Devanter brings us face to face with the toll that undeclared war took on its combatants."-Kirkus Reviews "If you read only one work about Vietnam, make this the one. . . . This is the way it was, as seen through the eyes of an army second lieutenant when she was twenty-two. I believe her completely, because this reviewer remembers Vietnam the same way, when he was a nineteen-year-old Marine PFC."-Deseret Sentinel
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| Customer Reviews: Read 30 more reviews...
 Only a wake-up August 27, 2008
I was a Navy Nurse, not Army. Same, same. This was the first book about the Viet Nam experience I was actually able to read through without throwing it against the wall. The first time I read this I sat up all night finishing it. It was that real. I laughed in some places and I wept in others. It felt incredibly good to finally read another woman saying and thinking many of the things I had felt and experienced. That morning
I felt like at last I was home from Hell because for the first time I felt like there was another living, breathing human being who understood.
This account is real. It's believable unlike some more heavily advertised publications which have come across as either blatent attempts to make money selling books crammed full of cheapo sex and psycho-drama, or frankly embarrassing tear-jerkers filled with comments no self respecting RN would EVER say. Hopefully, you will put down this book with a pretty accurate sense of what it was like being young, female, and a Nurse in the middle of the most insane reality on this planet: War. I keep my copy in my nightstand drawer for those times when sleep is impossible. It's my third one, the others fell apart. Worth reading. Worth owning. 'Nuff said.
 Good Book June 9, 2008
Had to read it for History class. Decent book if you are a nurse or had any experience with post traumatic stress, divorce, or Vietnam. Very interesting book, check it out
A Beautiful Story December 31, 2007
This is such a beautiful story; and one that needs to be told more often. It will give so much understanding to the generation born to those who came "of age" in the 1960's of what the VietNam war was all about. And, not many people knew anything about the role of the Army Nurse until now. This book is a must read!
Amazon was the only place I could find this book! October 20, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had read this book years ago and lost it after many moves. I wanted to read it again, with everything happening in Iran.
This book helps one to really understand what our soldiers and medical staff go through during a war and for the rest of their lives. I recommend it as a must read book.
 Sex, lies and surgical tape...30+ years later August 6, 2007
2 out of 8 found this review helpful
Based on my personal observations, Lynda was the laughing stock of the 71st Evac Hospital. And, she was also almost universally disliked. You had to tolerate her. But, you didn't have to like her. I heard alot from her other "friends" there in 1971. And, I was unfortunate enough to have to spend an afternoon, sitting in a jeep in downtown Pleiku, while she and a friend were wined and dined, so I observed her interactions firsthand. She was laughed at constantly because she was always trying to get out of doing something. But, that was Vietnam's fault. Not hers.
The book is not even good fiction. About 95% of the happenings she claimed never occurred. If they occurred they occurred to someone else, someplace else. The majority of the book is nothing but flights of fancy from a woman that wouldn't know the truth if it bit her. Every problem she ever had, since 1969, was blamed on Vietnam, the people she worked with, the war, the weather, whatever. Not one time in her book did she ever take responsibility for her actions and the repercussions she got from bad decisions.
My review of this book is not as fluent as others. But, my statements are based on personal experience with the subject matter of her and this book firsthand. I was there, I know.
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