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A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam
 
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A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam [Paperback]

Keith Walker (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
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A decade after America pulled out of Vietnam, the seeds of the often heart- wrenching oral history, A Piece of My Heart, were sown when writer and filmmaker Keith Walker met a woman who had been an emergency room nurse in Cu Chi and Da Nang. She and 25 others recount the time they spent "in country" as part of 15,000 American women who volunteered or served as nurses and in the military. After working on too many mutilated young men, one nurse tells of wanting to ask her mother to "check around and see if she could find one whole eighteen-year- old." Like male veterans, many returned with post-traumatic stress disorder. They found it hard to shake the numbness that made a war zone bearable or to settle into a life minus manic highs and lows. "The one thing Nam did for me was that I felt like I could walk on water," says a nurse, a conviction that made later jobs seem worthless or impossibly bland.

From Publishers Weekly

Some 15,000 American women served in Vietnam during the war. As one of them remarks in this collection of extended monologues, "The war really did a number on all of us, the women as well as the men." Despite sexual harassment, ambiguous feelings about the Vietnamese and traumatic combat-zone experiences, the women whose voices are heard here recall their wartime service in a generally positive light. Most of them were military nurses and WACs, but there are also Red Cross and USO volunteers, as well as a civilian flight attendant and a radio personality named Chris Noel, whose voice was familiar to thousands of homesick GIs. No great revelations or insights here; despite the book's twist of focusing on servicewomen, it's all rather predictable. Photos.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars There's a special place in Heaven..., Mar 16 2003
By 
Steven Cain (Temporal Quantum Pocket) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam (Paperback)
... for all of the women who served in Vietnam. Read this book, plus the late Lynda Van Devanter's Home Before Morning and you'll see why.

While Lynda's book is a hauntingly graphic record of the triumphs and tragedies that the ANC nurses and Army surgeons experienced in Nam, A Piece Of My Heart gives the reader a very broad perspective of the contributions of women in many other areas.

The foreword to the book was written by the wonderful Martha Raye, whose unflinching commitment to the men and women who served in Nam led to her being a two-time Purple Heart recipient. That even an entertainer could be wounded twice in the line of duty speaks volumes about the risk level In Country.

Equally, Civilian Flight Attendant Micki Voisard almost met her end when her airliner almost collided with a B-52 that was maintaining radio silence during an airstrike.

Yet even though the Red Cross Donut Dollies, such as Penni Evans and "Sam" Bokina Christie and WACs such as Doris Allen all have compelling stories to relate, it is the experiences of the nurses that really stay with you, long after you have put the book down.

For most of her post-Nam life, former ANC nurse and author Lynda Van Devanter (Home Before Morning - available through Amazon.com) was haunted by the memory of a young soldier who had no face, and who eventually had to be left to die because of the extent of his injuries.

When you read the piece by Anne Simon Auger (91st Evac. - Chu Lai) you realize that injuries of that magnitude were not as uncommon as you might hope and pray. Anne also described a young soldier whose face had been shot away, leaving him blind and in her words, "a vegetable".

While my own view is that people in such terrible physical condition should be given enough morphine to shut down their breathing, or in the absence of that, on the battlefield, a mercy round from an M-16, I fully accept that however you have to deal with such shocking injuries, it will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Let us not forget that while the cowardly Stalinist flag burners were calling the returning troops "baby killers", thousands of true blue American women were risking their own lives to support the largely teenaged US soldiers in a war that increasingly made no sense to the people who were being asked to fight it.

These women were Vets. These women were heroes. These women were angels.

We must constantly seek ways to honour them. Their sacrifice must never be forgotten.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Good Times, Bad Times, April 26 2002
By 
"gypsy879" (Milwaukee, WI United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam (Paperback)
These stories are so heart-wrenching I had to take a break while reading simply to keep from falling to pieces. These women are so amazing and strong - they're inspiring. I Loved this book and GREATLY recommend the play with the same title by Shirely Lauro that was based off of these stories. It's so unbelievable and so real it makes you feel for those 6 women more than you'd ever imagine!
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5.0 out of 5 stars Important Book!, May 21 2001
This review is from: A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam (Paperback)
This book should be required reading for students of Vietnam War history classes in high schools and colleges in America. Sincerely, Diana J. Dell, author, "A Saigon Party: And Other Vietnam War Short Stories."
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