Customer Reviews

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

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Another thrift shop purchase that I wasn't sure I would take too but strangely enough I was compelled to read the book from cover to cover.

At first the author Winnie Smith didn't strike me as all that likable, look at it from my point of view, a young white and attractive woman of the sixties, promiscuous yet strangely innocent, racist though she doesn't know it, after all racism was something that most people accepted as a kind of norm and at first filled with gung-ho patriotism to do her "bit" in Vietnam.

However as I turned each page I began to see the human side of Winnie and I realised she was a woman of her time or rather she was a woman living in time of misunderstood values, and misplaced values that she just happened to be partaking a part in.

Knee deep in blood, gore and guts Winnie does her "bit" sometimes seeing friends die in front of her, a particularly gruesome experience is seeing the chopper pilot she is with get the top of his head sliced off when their helicopter crashes. It is obvious from the way she writes that she is remembering every moment of that terrible incident.

Despite all of this horror she seems to get used to sending young men back home minus limbs or their minds or in body bags and she gets on with her job of being a nurse.

Interspersed in all of this is her innocence that is slowly but surely eroded by war and its indifferent cruelties, I laughed out loud when I read a section where she has to be told what "condom" is at the ripe old age of 22, Winnie grew up in Vietnam, came of age as did many of her counterparts but as woman she was never to be counted as one of the "survivors" of the Vietnam war.

Winnie is as much a causality of the war as the men she has helped put back together or sent home in a casket. She doesn't realise this until she is sent stateside and only then does the real horror begin, she has to come to terms with what she has seen and been through.

This is not a sentimental read, it is abrasive, harsh and mind numbing but it is also gives a real insight to the "other side" of war, of what it was like to be a Nurse looking after the soldiers wounded in battle.

Despite having a loving family at home Winnie is never able to make them understand what it was "truly like" in Vietnam but if Winnie is anything she is a survivor and in the end she comes to terms with her being a "Vietnam Vet" and gets on with her life, scarred, battle weary but totally and utterly a survivor.

I've never been quite so moved by a written account of the Vietnam experience as I was when reading Winnie Smith's "American Daughter". I was one of the hundreds of young soldiers for whom she cared, carrying with me the hopeful thoughts for her these past three decades. So many years ago, in reply to my asking her about her plans following the war, Winnie said she hoped to "return to the Carolina's, marry, settle-down and raise 12 kids!" The young girl I knew during my month's hospital stay is gone, and in her place a new and different Winnie Smith emerged from the hellishness of that war; a stronger nurse Smith indeed, and as her story portends, a woman who has finally found some peace with herself. While a riveting, graphic and abundantly candid account of her time at war, at least this one old soldier who was fortunate to have crossed her path ever so briefly, was left with a saddened and empty feeling after reading her story. Her story confirms it was too much to hope that that war would leave untarnished the gentle and innocent nurse Smith we knew then. "American Daughter" should be requisite reading for all war-makers. D. Lewis Smith, Jr. (no relation), 173rd Airborne, Bien Hoa, Vietnam, 1965/66.

Long ago, my boss gave me a copy of a thin (by my standards) book, and said it had been written by a friend of his; would I like to read it? I said yes; I love to read, and Bob Thomas was someone I admired. If he said a book was worthwhile, then I knew it was. "American Daughter Gone To War" has been with me ever since.

Winnie Smith's writing is straightforward. Her account of her childhood and adolescence is as clear as her account of her tour in Vietnam, even when the horrors start mounting up; although Smith's narrative sometimes skimps on description, the reader should keep in mind that she's writing her memoirs, not a novel. She shows a gallows humor throughout, particularly when she tells of dealing with arrogant doctors, officers, and (later) men who lie about having served in the war; she gives glimpses of the day-to-day life at the bases (tarantulas in the latrine are just one ordinary occurrence). When I finished the book, I felt as if I'd spent the time actually speaking to Smith, sharing in her memories, and was just as emotionally wrung as if I had.

If all history is relative, a patchwork of accounts from witnesses in high and low places (as well as on the giving and taking ends of orders), then the American involvement in the Vietnam War is a kaleidoscope. Of all the literary fragments worth piecing together, "American Daughter Gone To War," although small, is one to keep.

I thought this memoir was excellent. I was in Da Nang, Viet Nam from "69 to "70. I saw and experienced what she did; today, I feel the same way that she does. This great country of ours and the people in it have let all of us "Viet Nam Veterans" down because, I believe, of the devisiness of the war. All that we ask is that we be treated with respect as other Vets are. A wonderful book of how she coped. This is real.

As a 32 year old Canadian I picked up Winnie Smith's book out of interest as I am a Women's Studies student. I could hardly bring myself to put it down, and thought about it all the time I wasn't reading. If the war was a silent subject in the States it has been buried here in Canada. And yet there were many brave Canadian men and women who fought, nursed and died in Vietnam. Ms. Smith brings the war to vivid life and helps those of us to young to clearly remember Vietnam understand its impact on an entire generation of young people on either side of the 49th parallel. She does those who died in Vietnam and those who returned from Vietnam proud in a book that is insightful, honest and brutal in its recollections. I salute her courage in writing this book and thank her for the new perspective she has given me.

As a nurse of almost 25 years who graduated from high school in 1975 (just after Nixon's negotiated "peace with honor"), I have a sense that I could have done just what nurses like Winnie Smith and Lynda Devanter did. Gone to war to take care of people who would have needed me. Only time did save me...

This is a disturbing book and ultimately convincing in one of its' pleas: Let's NOT send young people to combat anymore. I'd send a copy to our war-bent president if I thought it would make a difference.

As an experienced ICU and ED nurse, I was horrified at the conditions these nurses worked (and lived) in.

At the end of the book, though you feel less worried about Winnie Smith, you never get the sense that life will be "all better" for her. This pain, this scar is deep and everlasting.

A raw and real book. I'd recommend it to anyone as I would DeVanter's book (Home Before Morning).

For those of us too young to remember the Vietnam War, it can seem like an unreal, almost romantic time. American Daughter dispelled all those myths and finally gave me an insight into why it was such a horrible war and the alienation the soldiers and nurses felt after getting back to the U.S. I became Winnie Smith when I read that book. I laughed when she laughed and felt pain when she lost someone she loved. It was funny, sad, gripping and most of all, real. What this nurse went through was experienced by tens of thousands of men and women, no older than me and in most cases, much younger. This book gave me insight I never got from a history class or Vietnam War documentary. I recommend it for anyone under 35. And let us all work together to prevent another war like this.

This book is different. This book goes where no memoir has gone before. It is a soul sharing account of former US Army nurse Winnie Smith's three years in the US Army nurse corps with the focus on Viet-Nam and its devastating personal aftermath. You follow her from her initial days in the US Army to Japan where she gets her first views of the war in Viet-Nam. She starts developing strong relationships with the "warriors." Some become extended family. This closeness takes it toll as because the men she liked, and sometimes loved, were killed, lost in action, or wounded. Her testimony of life at the Third Field Hospital in Saigon and then in the head trauma unit of the next hospital were so vivid you are there. She lets it be known that the army was not set up for females by the lack of facilities available. She danced with David Nelson of Ozzie and Harriet fame with out even knowing who he was until the other nurses asked what he like was. Her fear had her turn down marriage proposal from West Pointer Peter. After the service, she had trouble with relationships. In the years ahead, she lived in Dallas then San Francisco. While she went to graduate school the years following Viet-Nam are a vivid picture of the horrors of past traumatic stress disorder. The book is a painful look at this horrific disorder. The book shows there is hope and in many ways seem to be her avenue for dealing with it. She is surprised other persons have similar difficulties coping. She is shocked to learn that her stepfather who lost a leg in World War II had been injured days into the combat zone and thus had no real experience of war as a point of common ground. The book is worth your time. It shows the human toll of any war.

This book is different. This book goes where no memoir has gone before. It is a soul sharing account of former US Army nurse Winnie Smith's three years in the US Army nurse corps with the focus on Viet-Nam and its devastating personal aftermath. You follow her from her initial days in the US Army to Japan where she gets her first views of the war in Viet-Nam. She starts developing strong relationships with the "warriors." Some become extended family. This closeness takes it toll because the men she liked, and sometimes loved, were killed, lost in action, or wounded. Her testimony of life at the Third Field Hospital in Saigon and then in the head trauma unit of the next hospital were so vivid you are there. She lets it be known that the army was not set up for females by the lack of facilities available. She danced with David Nelson of Ozzie and Harriet fame with out even knowing who he was until the other nurses asked what he like was. Her fear had her turn down marriage proposal from West Pointer Peter. After the service, she had trouble with relationships. In the years ahead, she lived in Dallas then San Francisco. While she went to graduate school the years following Viet-Nam are a vivid picture of the horrors of post traumatic stress disorder. The book is a painful look at this horrific disorder. The book shows there is hope and in many ways seem to be her avenue for dealing with it. She is surprised other persons have similar difficulties coping. She is shocked to learn that her stepfather who lost a leg in World War II had been injured days into the combat zone and thus had no real experience of war as a point of common ground. The book is worth your time. It shows the human toll of any war.

very captivating, couldn't put it down. Tells how life was in vietnam and the aftermath of life with PTSD (before PTSD was known about). Very honest in the most detailed of emotions. Having read 'home before morning' many years ago, this is at least as good if not better. I highly recommend.

Details of caring for the most critically wounded and working with not enough trained people to care for them, of having to let some die so that those with a better chance could be treated.

Explains how the stupidity of the Vietnam war policies trickled into the health care of wounded and those who treated them.