Memories of a young Army Nurse assigned to shelf Although the author is honest and straightforward about her experiences, which were exceptionally difficult, they book is not agonizing to read the way Vietnam nurse Linda Van Devanter’s Home Before Morning is. There is something about the compassionate matter of fact tone of the writing that leads the reader to accept the horrifying situations described in the book, and to realize that they took place in certain time and place and were the result of a series of terrible mistakes, mistakes that need not be repeated if we remember the past. The book is chock full of wonderful information that I have not seen elsewhere in print. Powell provides drawings of hospital wards and explains in detail how the wards functioned. The only type of individual who does not receive compassionate treatment from Powell are chief nurses, who are invariably painted as petty tyrants.