Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Vietnam, by Susan O'Neill (HC, 2001, autographed, $15, which is 1/3 the internet price.)
These are stories from a female perspective, a nurses perspective. Our soldiers were in Vietnam to save the world from communism. Our nurses were there to save people's lives, no matter who they were.
"For these women and the men among whom they worked and lived, a common defense against the awful onslaught of dead and dying, wounded and maimed, was a feigned indifference, the irony of the helpless. 'Don't mean nothing' became their mantra, a small bunker in the real war- the war against total mental breakdown."
O'Neill served in Vietnam, served for one year and one month. She survived to now share with us a little of what it was like to be there. We, who were not there, can never really understand. When my friend would talk about his time there, sometimes I would just feel confused and conflicted. When he would realize this, he would touch my shoulder, and quietly say, "It's OK. I don't understand it either." The sadness and far away look in his eyes never quite went away. (Don, I haven't forgotten you.)
Of interest here is a post-it to the initial owners, from the couple who gifted it to them. O'Neill was their relative. In a way, she is related to all of us. Look for this book on the new fiction table. (L-sh.st.)
