Excellent technical review of Army medical operations in Vietnam. Sections on Dust-off, MAST pants and trauma resuscitation, field hospitals, and air evacuation were excellent. Too many statistics for the non-professional reader. Yet these were normally presented in tables and could be skipped without loss of content. Highly recommended.

The wounded in Vietnam presented uniquely new challenges to the caregivers, precisely because the evacuation system was so efficient as to present cases which had inevitably resulted in death in all previous conflicts.

The "dustoff" system, networks of receiving facilities, the unprecedented surgical techniques, and other elements are described here by General (Doctor) Hardaway, an expert on combat surgery, and other first-hand participants. Some of the essays are technical in nature and intended for readers knowledgeable in trauma care, but there is plenty here for the general reader of military history as well, and especially for students of the Vietnam War or military medicine.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books>)

this book was an excellent guide to malaysia, it not only helped my camping trip there, it was enjoyable as a book as well

This book an invaluable resource for anyone traveling to Malaysia. Did you know it's highly offensive to hand someone an object with your left hand? This book explains the local customs and cultures, so you will be a welcome guest, not one who is just tolerated.

This is one of the two books I read in preparing for a 3 week stay in Vietnam. The content was right on the mark, and helpful for even this traveler. In essential tips it more than paid for itself! It is simply a must for those traveling to Vietnam.

This book is a must for anyone planning a visit to Vietnam. My wife and I visited Hanoi three years ago and the content of this book hit the mark. It is full of practical information that is up to date and written by someone who has been there. This book will keep you from cultural mistakes that might cause you to offend someone and will help you get around the country in a smoother way. Our family is now returning to Vietnam for a four year stay and this book will be going with us!

This is the kind of feminism we have been looking for! Our bra burining sisters of the sixties had their hearts in theright place but the stories of some of these incredible women in this book give the term amazing grace a whole new meaning for me. wonderful book.

When I first read about this book in the papers I picked it up for my mom but once I started reading it I couldn't put it down myself! Great stories written from the heart and with a lot of heart plus great pix from around the South East Asian region. I loved the introductory story about the author's grandmother as I felt she was talking about my own grandma, who was a great unifier of the family when she was alive and a great cook as well. A definite must on this year's Christmas list for all my female friends. Good job!

This is by far the best written book I have ever read. The Dream of a Thousand Lives chronicles the year Connelly spends as an exchange student in Asia. Tired of "the marvels of Calgary," Connelly sets off to Thailand with curiosity and a briefcase full of licorice and loose-leaf. As Connelly explains, the ants devoured the licorice in the first week, but the paper survived.

Connelly never resorts to decorative travel writing, but sticks to a witty and unfailingly honest account of her time in Thailand. The book, (originally titled "Touch the Dragon" in Canada) consists of a chronological collection of the author's journal entries, detailing her time in Denchai (living at a the Thai Liquor Store owned by her first host family) to her travels to Bangkok and Chang Mai.

Connelly possesses a rare ability to convey the strange labyrinth of lives and experiences she encounters in the small farming Village of Denchai into a lyrical fluid narrative. This is a book that you will not be able to put down.

Superb book. I couldn't put it down - bought it yesterday & read until I fell asleep then finished this morning. I felt as though I was there, travelling with her. She has a great sense of humor that is splashed throughout the book. I truly had a sense of how she felt on her year long visit there. I'm so glad she shared her memories.

One of the only books I have ever read in one sitting and then went back to read again. I have also met Mr Ruybal, who I purchased the book from and he is definately a geniune individuall. I applaude him for telling it the way it was.

Mr. Ruybal's book tells it like it really was!!! I applaud his honesty in writing about his expierence! I know several vets, and all of them are alcohol or drug dependent people, or they are recovering from addiction. Mr. Ruybal was honest in his thoughts and feelings.

This is a unique and invaluable book. It is the only first-person narrative in English of the East Timorese resistance from the 1975 invasion to the 1992 capture of Xanana Gusmão. The cataclysmic events of the Indonesian occupation that have been carefully chronicled before in several third-person accounts are presented here as moments of danger and decision in an individual's life. Pinto, with the editorial help of Jardine, has succeeded in giving the reader a vivid sense of how the East Timorese have struggled and survived through the torrent of violence that has been unleashed upon them. The reader follows Pinto from a worry-free childhood, when he played games such as kalek (which involves knocking fruits out of a certain type of tree), to a danger-filled adolescence and adulthood. At age 13, he fled with his family from his hometown of Remexio (southeast of Dili) while mortar shells and bombs rained down around them. For a year and a half, they lived in a town further south, just out of the Indonesian army's reach. There he learned guerrilla fighting and weekly alternated guard duty on the front line with farm work. Overcoming his initial trepidation and despondency, he gained the resolve to fight until death. When the Indonesian military (ABRI) escalated its counter-insurgency campaign in late 1977, Pinto and his family fled again. The thousands who took refuge in the forested hills became cut off from their food supplies: "sometimes we only had a piece of manioc to eat for the whole day." Each family spent the day hiding from the soldiers and the night searching for food. Pinto, with his parents, siblings and 50 other people, were captured after one year of hardscrabble life in the jungle. ABRI soldiers had forced several recently captured East Timorese to lead them to the others in the forest. His hometown Remexio, where ABRI resettled the captives, was turned into a concentration camp. It was a demoralizing time. He saw his friends, relatives and neighbors die of dysentery and malnutrition. He saw a manacled Xavier do Amaral, the head of the main resistance organization, brought before the townspeople to make a coerced 'apology.' With the help of relatives, Pinto's family soon moved to Dili in late 1978. As many East Timorese were driven out of the forests and into the cities and towns, their terrain of resistance shifted from the liberated zones to the Indonesian-controlled territory. They learned the arts of dissimulation under the harsh conditions of a settler colonialism. Pinto describes how he would appear loyal and submissive before the Indonesians with whom he had to daily interact, while privately dreaming of independence and secretly scheming with friends. Pinto joined an underground movement in Dili in 1983 that worked undetected amidst the occupiers. It was this underground movement, constantly in touch with the guerrillas still in the hills, that was behind the highly visible civil protests of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Pinto, as the head of the underground at that time, reveals the planning behind the actions during the visits of the Pope (October 1989) and the US ambassador John Monjo (January 1990). His eyewitness behind-the-scenes account of the demonstration to the Santa Cruz cemetery on November 12, 1992 and the massacre of 271 people is essential reading on this event. Particularly important is Pinto's narration of how Xanana Gusmao lived underground (literally) in Dili from February 1991 to November 1992. Pinto's unadorned and ordinary prose indicates the mental balance he has been able to maintain through extraordinary experiences, such as his vertiginous mind games with Indonesian intelligence while posing as a double agent and his dangerous overland escape from East Timor. The hyped-up, overcharged spy thrillers of pulp fiction are no match for the terrors of real-life experiences straightforwardly narrated. For those who know little about East Timor, this book makes for an excellent introduction. To complement Pinto's gripping narrative, Jardine has provided background material on Indonesian and US politics in prefatory and concluding essays. Much care has been put into the footnotes, bibliography, and selection of photographs. For those who know much about this tortured half-island, Pinto's inside information reveals much that they would not have known. In sum, this book is a landmark achievement in the literature on East Timor.

Constâncio Pinto's life is an exemple of what it means to live in fear for most of your life and, despite that, maintain a constant sense of justice in a world that's not fair. As a brazilian, I certainly can relate with his testimony - of a catholic, portuguese-speaking man. He describes with incredible simplicity and humanity (and that's why the book is so powerful) all his life as an East Timor resistence member, seeing your friends being killed and being himself brutally tortured and persecuted. East Timor's fight is a methaphor for the most brutal opression vs. the faith in freedom, justice and peace. And with people like Constâncio, we are reminded that peace and justice are always achievable no matter how we suffer and no matter how hard is our struggle.

This is the best guide book i have ever bought. It helped me get through my whole trip in singapore, I would have been totally lost without it.

I love all Eyewitness guides and was not disappointed with this one. Full of details, full of pictures and very well organized. Just great...

"The Fall of Saigon," by David Butler is a detailed account of a heartbreaking story. The author weaves a complete narrative by combining first hand American and Vietnamese views. Moreover, having been on the ground in Saigon during that last days of the American war in Vietnam Butler provides credible information.

Butler's work is comprehensive and objective. He also manages to integrate many tid-bits of information to demonstrate the plight of the everyday pedestrian. However, the key to the success of this book is the minute by minute, hour by hour countdown of how Americas pulled out of Vietnam. The text is enhanced by outstanding photos.

Anyone interested in examining the hasty withdrawal from Saigon should read this intimate book. Butler knows the cast of journalists and many of the key American embassy players. Consequently, he has managed to complete an amazingly credible manuscript of how the U.S. failed to keeps its promise to thousands of Vietnamese. Butler proves we were not able to keep our word when we said...that we would never leave without them.

Do not start this book unless you have plenty of reading time. The phrase "hard to put down" is an understatement. For most of us, we watched the events of April 29, 1975 unfold on our TV sets. Author David Butler not only watched, but was also a participant in the final hours of the American Presence in Vietnam. His eyewitness accounts are both gripping and detailed. He has also collected and researched numerous first-person accounts from those who were in Saigon during those last hours.

The North Vietnamese Army made thier final push at 4 AM and in the process cut off the only available airfield. The only means of escape from the siege would be a massive evacuation using helicopters. While reading these accounts, you can feel the tension and confusion along with countless other emotions of those involved. A Hollywood script could never compare to this real-life drama. The Vietnam War was a long road in American History. The Fall of Saigon was the last milestone.

This book documents the last few chaotic weeks of the US presents in Vietnam. The human story is effectively conveyed by first hand accounts of eyewitnesses from many strata of Vietnam society. The author, an NBC reporter in Saigon, witnessed these events firsthand. His unique perspective and access to the diplomatic corps adds a fascinating credibility to the book. His discussion concerning the actions and statements of Ambassador Graham Martin particularly intrigued me. Did Martin's decisions during that period contribute to the frantic last minute evacuation that left many friendlies stranded? The author makes no judgments. Butler includes transcript of many diplomatic cables to and from Martin and Secretary of State Kissinger and the White House concerning events and plans for evacuation and rescue. Reading these transcripts today still convevs a strong emotional impact for this reader. Interspacing these high level discussions are the stories of a whole society turned upside down while "we" skipped town. The Fall of Saigon is not an easy book to read. We are forced to confront the final conclusion of our failed crusade. Our goal was the minds and the hearts but we ended up fragmented the lives of the people we were suppose to help. When one considers the sacrifices made by both countries in treasure and lives the facts concerning the events of April-May 1975 are hard to digest, even after 30 plus years. No judgments are made here, no accusing fingers are pointed; we must read, and ponder.

Butler was a reporter in Vietnam when the world came crashing down on the South Vietnamese government, the United States that had backed it, and the people who had joined the American cause. This is a searing book, worth any number of lofty Frances FitzGerald tomes. Butler was on the street, in the bars, and driving down the road. What's more important, he loved Vietnam and the Vietnamese. Their tragedy was his tragedy. Go find this book, in a library or a used-book store; it's worth the effort. And if you're a publisher, for God's sake get it reprinted.