American Daughter Gone to War: On the Front Lines with an Army Nurse in Vietnam

Smith, Winnie

ISBN 10: 0688111882 / ISBN 13: 9780688111885

Published by W. Morrow, New York, 1992

About this Item

25 cm, 352, acid-free paper, illus., some edge wear and small tears to DJ, erasure residue on half-title. Bookseller Inventory # 26690

Bibliographic Details

Title: American Daughter Gone to War: On the Front ...

Publisher: W. Morrow, New York

Publication Date: 1992

Book Condition: very good, good

Edition: First Edition. Second Printing.

About this title

Synopsis:

A former army nurse during the Vietnam War describes her days and nights, dating fighter pilots, tending to wounded soldiers, and getting a taste of the tragedy of war while working in a Saigon intensive care unit. 25,000 first printing. $17,500 ad/promo.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A searing account from former Army nurse Smith of her tour of duty in Vietnam and its devastating personal aftermath. Joining the Army ``to see the world,'' Smith was a gung-ho supporter of the war, and an initial period at an Army base in Japan with all the comforts of home did little to dispel her enthusiasm. In fact, the ``warriors' air of bravado and cocky self- assurance fanned [her] notions about war'' even as she ``was drawn to the strong kinship among them, a sense of family.'' And this closeness would make her stint in Vietnam even worse, because the men she liked, and sometimes loved, often were killed, lost in action, or horribly wounded. Hospitals she served in, like the Third Field Hospital in Saigon, were nightmarish places of inadequate supplies and equipment, squalid living quarters, and men with wounds so terrible that it was difficult at times for Smith not to show her own horror and dismay. The local Vietnamese were exploitative and resentful, nothing seemed to work, and the war was obviously not going well. Her tour over, Smith returned to the US, but had difficulty adjusting to her family, old friends, and new jobs. Peter, whom she had met in Vietnam, asked her to marry him, but terrified of losing him--he was a professional soldier--she turned him down. In the years that followed, Smith went to graduate school and moved to San Francisco, but was troubled by often debilitating memories and flashbacks. With the help of a veterans' support group, she finally exorcised her memories and recovered sufficiently to attend the 1985 dedication of N.Y.C.'s Vietnam Memorial, where the warmth of the crowd's welcome was a ``long- awaited dream come true.'' No false heroics, no patriotic gloss, only the Vietnam War in all its grim reality. (Fifteen b&w photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.