Home Before Morning: The Story

Home Before Morning: The Story Of an Army Nurse in Vietnam

The first chapter of Lynda Van Devanter's book Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam makes it clear that even though nurses who served in Vietnam were not formal combatants they still experienced the same trauma adjusting back to civilian life, long after the war had ended. Although Lynda begins her narrative in the present day, she is still tormented by night sweats and flashbacks. "Vietnam was the worst time of my life, yet it was also, in many ways, the most important and most intense" (Van Devanter 14).

The book is divided into three sections -- before Vietnam, during Vietnam and after Lynda's service overseas. When Lynda left for Southeast Asia, she was fresh out of nursing school, and had spent most of her life living in a sheltered suburban community. The first chapters of her memoir are devoted to a character study of herself as a young woman and America during the 1960s. Lynda was a somewhat naive, but tough-minded young woman who was insecure about her appearance (her nickname was 'Crisco' because of her 'big can') but confident about her ability to succeed in the world.

Lynda grew up in a Catholic household with a mother who was often ill and a loving father who raised her as the son he always wanted: caring for others was second nature to her, and she had been raised to be as tough as a man. Being an army nurse seemed like a natural extension of her family's values, as well as the ideals the Kennedy era. "I saw the United States pursuing a course that President Kennedy had talked about in his inaugural address: We are saving a country from communism. There were brave boys fighting and dying for democracy" (Van Devanter 49).

As part of her intensive medical training at a rigorous Catholic nursing college, Lynda saw psychiatric patients and patients at the end of life -- but nothing could have prepared her for Vietnam. If anything, she was isolated from the culture wars raging outside, although she was more liberal than her father and had supported the civil rights movement. Her brief love affair with a soldier made her all the more determined to serve in the military as a healer.

The second part of the book details Lynda's somewhat giddy introduction into the army through basic training (despite the discipline, her friendship with her fellow nursing student Barbara, made the training seem almost like boarding school or a slumber party). Basic training left both women woefully unprepared for the psychologically harrowing experience of being in Vietnam. Lynda took an oath to serve her country, just like the men she would nurse, and faced the same risks as her male counterparts. Lynda was first assigned to the 71st Evacuation Hospital. Ironically, within hours of arriving in Vietnam, the first army nurse was killed. This coincidence was a stark reminder of how women were putting their lives on the line, just like their male counterparts. At first, Lynda supported the war, and wrote letters back home encouraging her parents to fly the American flag in defiance of the anti-war demonstrators. But gradually, it became clear to her that the Viet Cong were not the only combatants perpetrating bloodshed and violence -- injustice was manifest on both sides.

The sheer number of American casualties was overwhelming, and many of the cases deemed hopeless received no care at all, because of limited medical supplies. Doctors and nurses were so weary during the nonstop work of treatment and surgery they could hardly stand. The stifling heat, unsanitary jungle, and the fear of being attacked were all constant for the physicians as well as the soldiers. Lynda's self-esteem had always been shaky, and with the daily horrors of Vietnam, she even grew more vulnerable to bad romantic decision-making, desperate for some comfort. Lynda entered into a series of doomed relationships with doctors, all of whom had wives and children back home.

The final section of the book details Lynda's return to America. Just like servicemen, nurses experienced a profound shock transitioning back to America. When she was walking around in uniform at home, Lynda was spat upon and cursed: "Welcome home, asshole!" anti-war protesters screamed at her (Van Devanter 209). There is a notable contrast between the beginning of the book, when people were friendly to young Lynda and Barbara as they traveled around the country in an unreliable car, and Lynda's reception as an army nurse after serving her country. Lynda's memories of Vietnam made it difficult to have an effective relationship with men and to simply trust people again. She found that her service and the service of other women were ignored. Many Americans simply did not believe that female nurses would be sent by 'our' military into combat (Van Devanter 225). This was devastating for Lynda, and for her fellow nurses, who were haunted with guilt and the memories of what they had seen, particularly the suffering of the Vietnamese children. Lynda found herself replying, when asked what Vietnam was liked, that it "sucked" and then saying no more (Van Devanter 225).