What I’m Reading – When I die I’m going to Heaven ’cause I’ve spent my Time in Hell – Barbara Hesselman Kautz, MSN, RN

As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t know a lot about the War in Vietnam. Maybe it’s because it formed the backdrop of my youth and teenage years, and the specter of going there loomed large.

Maybe it’s much more comfortable to study something that happened further in the past.

Maybe I was just too lazy to learn anything about it.

I served with men who were there. I’ve had relatives and men tell me their stories of service there in hopes I’d just shut up and listen.

So now, I’m trying to learn something about that war that shaped my youth.

First, the reason I purchased the book.

The Title! That’s about as heartfelt as it comes. Hell has to be a vacation spot compared to the place these men and women find themselves in.

The cover didn’t hurt either. An attractive nurse in the middle of the shot. Looks like something out of MASH. But it’s what’s around her that tells you this will not be a joy ride. In the surrounding beds are the shattered remains of young men, tubes running in and out of them to contrast with her image. exhaustion is etched into her eyes.

The story is told in the first person. Barbara was there, living through the events. She was assigned to one of the many hospitals in Vietnam and worked in the neurological unit. A constant battle was to get brain-damaged patients to cooperate with treatment. Many times, the nurses and corpsmen who worked in the hospital had to invoke a ghost called Mighty Ralph to get them to cooperate.

The lived in small rooms and enjoyed what distractions the small base offered. Things like a swimming pool located right next to the Agent Orange dump. Or having to employee locals who blew up the bathroom because they dumped the remains fo their meals down the showers and plugged them up.

Ot the soldier they managed to keep alive despite being more dead than alive who showed up at one of their reunions.

Her books shows not only the horrors of it all, but how they dealt with it. There’re times of sadness and times of hilarity. There are stories of a perv on base who got away with it after terrorizing the nurses. There are stories of getting away, being put up by accident at one seriously fine hotel, and almost everything they needed and wanted picked up by an American businessman.

The book is not a novel nor is it meant to be one. It’s the account of someone who’s been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. It’s the story of someone who survived it. And better, there’s plenty of photographs.

A worthy read for anyone wanting to learn anything about how people lived and dealt with that war.