Home Before Morning
Lynda Van Devanter tells of joining the Army as a nurse in 1969 and working for a year in Vietnam, and of the effects of the experience on her life. Lynda Van Devanter was the girl next door, the cheerleader who went to Catholic schools, enjoyed sports, and got along well with her four sisters and parents. After high school she attended nursing school and then did something that would shatter her secure world for the rest of her life: in 1969, she joined the army and was shipped to Vietnam. When she arrived in Vietnam her idealistic view of the war vanished quickly. She worked long and arduous hours in cramped, ill-equipped, understaffed operating rooms. She saw friends die. Witnessing a war close-up, operating on soldiers and civilians whose injuries were catastrophic, she found the very foundations of her thinking changing daily. After one traumatic year, she came home, a Vietnam veteran. Coming home was nearly as devastating as the time she spent in Asia. Nothing was the same- including Lynda herself. Viewed by many as a murderer instead of a healer, she felt isolated and angry. The anger turned to depression; like many other Vietnam veterans she suffered from delayed stress sy
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What you might want to know about Home Before Morning
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
An Army nurse from a small American town signs up for Vietnam in 1969. Her memoir takes readers through her year in the surgical hospitals and the much longer years of trying to live with what she saw.
Home Before Morning was written by Lynda Van Devanter and published in 1983. It is a Vietnam War nursing memoir, one of the first major books written by an American woman who served in the war.
Yes. Home Before Morning is Lynda Van Devanter's nonfiction account of serving as an Army nurse in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970 and her postwar struggles. The book influenced the depiction of women in the TV series China Beach.
Home Before Morning is 331 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Home Before Morning takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Home Before Morning is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
Home Before Morning is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.