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(Date Posted:09/02/2007 6:24 PM)
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />Thuy TramHarmony (Crown), Sep 2007, $19.95ISBN: 9780307347374In 1968 in a?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" />Viet Namtwenty-four years old Dr. Dang Thuy Tram joined the Viet Cong as a physician at a battlefield hospital.In 1970 American soldiers shot and killed her.In those two years that she served as a battlefield doctor, she kept a diary.Military Intelligence officer Fred Whitehurst found the tattered hand sewn journal in 1970; preserved it (against orders); and eventually in 2005 presented it to Dr. Tram's dairy to her family.The diary is a deep look at the destructive impact of theViet Namwar on the country and its people from the perspective of a young medical volunteer who was zealous towards healing her patients.Dr. Dang Thuy Tram provides insight into the horrors of war as she struggles with saving lives and not having great success.Although difficult to read at times as this is a journal filled with short concise commentary (remember this was not intended to be published as a book three decades later),LAST NIGHT I DREAMED OF PEACE is a powerful indictment of those who rush others to war from a safe distance as the innocent suffer for years afterward.Harriet Klausner
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Harriet Klausner | 
