Friday, September 10, 2010

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram

The diary of a lady doctor killed by American soldiers during the Vietnam War referred to the Bald Eagle people as:

"imperialist killers," "vicious dogs," "bloodthirsty devils," and "terrible, cruel people who want to use our blood to water their tree of gold."

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram


Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram (9780307347374): Dang Thuy Tram: Books//The diary is valuable for the perspective it offers on war—Thuy is not obsessed with military maneuvers but rather the damage, both physical and emotional, that the war is inflicting on her...








"Tram did not survive the war. On June 22, 1970, an American soldier shot her in the head while she was walking down a jungle pathway dressed in the conventional black pajamas of her compatriots. Judging by her diary, rescued from the flam...es by another American soldier and first published in Vietnam in 2005, she died with a firm commitment to the Communist Party, the reunion of Vietnam, her profession and her patients, many of whom she saved in surgeries conducted under the most primitive and dangerous conditions imaginable. In one of her first entries, on April 12, 1968, she characterizes herself as having 'the heart of a lonely girl filled with unanswered hopes and dreams.' This longing and yearning—especially for the lover she rarely sees, a man she names only as 'M' — fills these pages and gives them a poignancy that is at times almost unbearable. "

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