Página inicialGruposDiscussãoMaisZeitgeist
Pesquise No Site
Este site usa cookies para fornecer nossos serviços, melhorar o desempenho, para análises e (se não estiver conectado) para publicidade. Ao usar o LibraryThing, você reconhece que leu e entendeu nossos Termos de Serviço e Política de Privacidade . Seu uso do site e dos serviços está sujeito a essas políticas e termos.

Resultados do Google Livros

Clique em uma foto para ir ao Google Livros

Carregando...

365 Days: The Forgotten Heroes of Vietnam (1971)

de Ronald J. Glasser

MembrosResenhasPopularidadeAvaliação médiaMenções
1862145,248 (3.92)7
History. Military. Nonfiction. HTML:National Book Award Finalist: The Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of an army doctorâ??"a book of great emotional impact" (The New York Times).

In 1968, as a serviceman in the Vietnam War, Dr. Ronald Glasser was sent to Japan to work at the US Army hospital at Camp Zama. It was the only general army hospital in Japan, and though Glasser was initially charged with tending to the children of officers and government officials, he was soon caught up in the waves of casualties that poured in from every Vietnam front. Thousands of soldiers arrived each month, demanding the help of every physician within reach.

In 365 Days, Glasser reveals a candid and shocking account of that harrowing experience. He gives voice to seventeen of his patients, wounded men counting down the days until they return home. Their stories bring to life a world of incredible bravery and suffering, one where "the young are suddenly left alone to take care of the young." An instant classic of war literature, 365 Days is a remarkable, ground-level account of Vietnam's human toll.… (mais)

Nenhum(a)
Carregando...

Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro.

Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro.

» Veja também 7 menções

Exibindo 2 de 2
The "mission of the Army Medical Corps is to support the fighting strength not deplete it." This was the stark reality face by doctors and surgeons who performed heroically to save lives and who, naturally, were reluctant to see all their efforts destroyed, especially in cases where the soldier might only have days or a couple of weeks before his time in Nam was up. Vietnam was a war of limits, some areas were off limits to bombing, soldiers were limited to a year "in country."

Glasner was a pediatrician sent to Japan to care for the children of officers stationed there. Because of the enormous demands placed on the medical service and the huge number of casualties, he was ordered to work in the hospitals where the wounded were sent. This book recounts episodes in the combat lives of those soldiers.

It was a war of numbers. 365. The magic number. Body counts, the only thing that mattered. Some units would count and then bury their enemy dead on the way in so they could dig them up and count them again on the way back out. Commanders would assign quotas and if a squad didn't meet its quota, they'd have to go out again until they met it.

The book consists of a mind-numbing series of stories -- sketches, he calls them - from the battlefield and hospital interspersed with medical reports of excruciating injuries, their treatment, successes and failures. All the stories are true, either witnessed first hand by the author or retold from incidents related to him by soldiers at the hospital.

An excerpt: "The next morning the two platoons were flown back to the rest of their company. That first night back, they were hit again --two mortar rounds. The next day on patrol near the village, the slack stepped on a buried 50-caliber bullet, driving it down on a nail and blowing off the front part of his foot. When the medic rushed to help, he tripped a pull-release bouncing betty, blowing the explosive charge up into the air. It went off behind him, the explosion and shrapnel pitching him forward on to his face. Some of the white hot metal, blowing backwards, caught the trooper coming up behind him." This kind of incessant trauma finally caught up with the men and one finally snapped. He charged the village, which most assumed was harboring VC, shooting a retreating two men and a girl. Both were shot by the furious troopers. "They stripped the girl, cut off her nose and ears, and left her there with the other two for the villagers."

With this kind of pressure, it's no wonder, many men just broke and became catatonic or paralyzed. They were shipped to the hospital and Glasser describes with some awe the "new psychiatry," a process by which the army snapped them out of it and made sure they were returned to duty as soon as possible. In WW II 25% of those evacuated from a combat area was done so for neuropsychiatric reasons. In WW I it was called shell shock and the assumption was that soldiers had been too close to a shell when it went off causing some kind of brain trauma. The army could not tolerate the loses from psychiatric problems. They discovered if you change the expectations, no longer consider someone mentally ill, but expect him to return to his unit, to walk, to perform his normal duties, to not forget he is in the army. Evacuation from the front was not helping, it was making things worse; they discovered "that it was best to treat these boys as far forward as possible; that their unit identification should be maintained and, above all else, the treatment should always include the unwavering expectation, no matter how disabling the symptoms, that these boys would be returned to duty as soon as possible."

The army had to learn how to deal with racial issues as well. In one case a black soldier, a medic, had been rotated back to base where he went nuts, attacking several superior officers. He was sent to the hospital in a strait jacket. When the CID folks came to investigate, the psychiatrist told him, "the Army made a bad mistake with him. They made him a medic, gave him respect and an important job, and then rotated him back to base camp where he was harassed, abused, given menial jobs, treated like a stupid nigger, and told to mind his own business."

The new psychiatry worked, but it did nothing about the war in which 11,000 wounded were sent for repair each month, with hundreds killed. And, of course, there was no follow-up to see what happened to those who returned to duty down the road.

Extraordinary read. ( )
  ecw0647 | Sep 30, 2013 |
365 Days is one of the earlier historical works to come out of the American Vietnam War effort. The author was a medical doctor assigned to the general hospital, Zama, in Japan. The hospital received, either from chopper transport or, when they couldn’t fly, from ambulances arriving from U.S. airbases in Japan, freshly wounded men from the battles in Vietnam. This history is told from the viewpoint of the individuals who fought and who were wounded. Most of the chapters tell the story from the vantage point of an experience or a group of experiences of a single individual. Some (Choppers, Medics, $90,000,000 a day, Gentlemen it Works) are general in nature and tell the story in the form snippets of experiences from several individuals and one (Final Pathological Diagnosis) is a simple chilling summation of the medical facts concerning a single patient.

The book is well written and the prose paints vivid word pictures which hold the readers interest. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in understanding war from the standpoint of the individual participant. See Common Knowledge for an example of the writing style. ( )
1 vote alco261 | Aug 3, 2013 |
Exibindo 2 de 2
sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha

Notable Lists

Você deve entrar para editar os dados de Conhecimento Comum.
Para mais ajuda veja a página de ajuda do Conhecimento Compartilhado.
Título canônico
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Título original
Títulos alternativos
Data da publicação original
Pessoas/Personagens
Lugares importantes
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Eventos importantes
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Filmes relacionados
Epígrafe
Dedicatória
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
To the memory of Stephen Crane
Primeiras palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
"Why write anything?" Peterson said.
Citações
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
You don't wear tiger stripes in Japan. They're not authorized. Jungle fatigues, regular fatigues, class-A khakis, summer or winter greens, even Army shorts are OK, but not tiger stripes. With their jagged slashes of black and green, it's hard to pass them off as being defensive. They're for the jungle, for tracking and killing without being seen. So to spare the sensitivities of our Japanese hosts, the United States Army had ruled that tiger stripes were not to be worn in that country. Every now and then, though, someone ignores the regulations. Usually, after a little official harassment, he gives in and takes them off. Some, though, don't. A few, simply because they've been through it all and don't give a shit; others, because even in Japan, their war's not over; some, a little of both. These are the ones you can't push around, and if you hassle them about anything - even their uniforms - you'd better be ready to go all the way, because they'll take you there whether you want to go or not. Brock noticed the Major glaring at him, but kept rignt on walking. "He you...you in the camies." Camies...! Camies...? Jesus! Without turning around, Brock came slowly to a stop. "Yes you, soldier." Amused, Brock turned around. "Come here!" Smiling, Brock walked slowly back down to corridor. He was carrying his bush hat. His short blond hair had been bleached almost white by the sun, and he had the pinched, drawn look of having been outdoors too long. Except for his first lieutenant's bars and jump wings, there was nothing else on his tiger stripes, not even a unit patch. "We don't wear that uniform around here," the Major said. "But I'm not from around here," Brock said pleasantly enough. "Where you from?" "Sorry, can't tell you that." "Sir," the Major corrected sharply. "What unit are you with?" "Sorry, can't tell you that, either." "What are you doing here?" "I'm afraid I can't tell you that...sir." The Major flushed. "Lieutenant," he said angrily, "you're getting yourself into trouble." Unmoved, Brock remained silent, offering nothing. "Who's your commanding officer!" "Right now," Brock said, turning to observe a patient being rolled past him, "I am." "Lieutenant," the Major barked, his voice echoing up and down the corridor, "junior officers stand at attention when they are talking to the seniors." With people stopping nearby, he was gathering himself to go on when Brock suddenly turned on him. His whole posture had changed. The calm indifference had vanished and now the major found himself facing a cold furious young man. "You!" Brock said contemptuously. "You, senior! A hospital personnel officer." The change had been so abrupt, Brock's contempt so brazenly expressed, that for a moment the Major was startled. " "I want you in my office this afternoon," he stammered, his face purple with fury. "I won't be there," Brock said quietly. "You'll be there, dammit, and when you walk into my office, Lieutenant, I want you in class-A kahakis, or you'll go back to Nam in cuffs. Understand?" Brock didn't even bother to answer. He simply turned his back on the Major and continued on his way to the admissions office. The med evacs had already come in for that day and the admissions clerk had just finished typing up the daily census when Brock walked into the office. Ignoring the Corporal's stare at his tiger stripes, he handed him a piece of paper. "Could you tell me if these men are still here?" It is not uncommon for an officer if he is in Japan to visit his men. Almost all the wounded from Nam come there. What was uncommon was the Lieutenant's list. Everyone was ranger-qualified. Everyone was Special Forces. Each had graduated from Recondo School, spent time at the Royal Jungle Tracking School of Malaysia, had been HALO trained - and each had been shot. There was not a frag wound or booby-trap injury among them. In a hospital full of idiotic blunders, miscalculations, and stupid mistakes, it was an extraordinary group.
Últimas palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Aviso de desambiguação
Editores da Publicação
Autores Resenhistas (normalmente na contracapa do livro)
Idioma original
CDD/MDS canônico
LCC Canônico

Referências a esta obra em recursos externos.

Wikipédia em inglês (1)

History. Military. Nonfiction. HTML:National Book Award Finalist: The Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of an army doctorâ??"a book of great emotional impact" (The New York Times).

In 1968, as a serviceman in the Vietnam War, Dr. Ronald Glasser was sent to Japan to work at the US Army hospital at Camp Zama. It was the only general army hospital in Japan, and though Glasser was initially charged with tending to the children of officers and government officials, he was soon caught up in the waves of casualties that poured in from every Vietnam front. Thousands of soldiers arrived each month, demanding the help of every physician within reach.

In 365 Days, Glasser reveals a candid and shocking account of that harrowing experience. He gives voice to seventeen of his patients, wounded men counting down the days until they return home. Their stories bring to life a world of incredible bravery and suffering, one where "the young are suddenly left alone to take care of the young." An instant classic of war literature, 365 Days is a remarkable, ground-level account of Vietnam's human toll.

Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas.

Descrição do livro
Resumo em haiku

Current Discussions

Nenhum(a)

Capas populares

Links rápidos

Avaliação

Média: (3.92)
0.5
1
1.5
2 1
2.5
3 7
3.5 2
4 8
4.5
5 8

É você?

Torne-se um autor do LibraryThing.

 

Sobre | Contato | LibraryThing.com | Privacidade/Termos | Ajuda/Perguntas Frequentes | Blog | Loja | APIs | TinyCat | Bibliotecas Históricas | Os primeiros revisores | Conhecimento Comum | 203,234,498 livros! | Barra superior: Sempre visível