AO DAI: My War, My Country, My Vietnam
Reader Comments

"This is one of the most extraordinary memoirs I have ever read: heroic in the scale of human courage and character it describes; staggering in the degree of danger and privation the author willingly endures to help liberate her country; and deeply inspiring in the warm and generous humanity of the woman who survives it all. It is also mightily instructive to Americans still puzzled by the tenacity of a people whose low-tech resistance cost nearly 60,000 American lives."
                                                - Robert MacNeil, New York, NY, former co-anchor of The NewsHour on PBS and author, most recently, of Do You Speak American?

"This chronicle by a woman with enough courage, optimism, and resolve to survive bombardment, deprivation, and the cultural conflicts brought about by the War in Vietnam--all told with seemingly total recall--will be a mind-opening experience for any reader. It is a close-focus look at a terrible time, beautifully rendered."
                                                - Anne Bernays, Cambridge, MA, author, most recently (with Justin Kaplan), of Back Then: Two Lives in 1950's New York

"There is so little authentic material available about the role of women on the other side during the war, and certainly nothing that matches the elegant prose of this work."
                                                - James Reckner, Lubbock, TX, Director of the Vietnam Center, Texas Tech University

"Few life stories are truly amazing. This is one of them--the remarkable story of a woman's survival through two wars, Communism, and much, much more. It was her struggle that created her self-determination, courage, endurance, and a strong will to persevere under the most difficult of circumstances. Phuong's story serves as both a tribute and an inspiration to the strength of young women everywhere. Brava!"
                                                - K-lee Starland, Phoenix, AZ, author of Changing the Rules: the Resurgence of the Feminine

"A remarkable work, it reminds me of the Vietnam War years and of Barbara Tuchman's Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945, the book that introduced me to the West's misconception of events in the Far East."
                                                - Irwin Rosenthal, Ellenville, NY