Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding
Review: This book to me was very moving. Even being a male, it brought tears and chills while reading what they ALL had to withstand. Those Nurses were what America was, and I hope is, today. A 50 star salute to them all!!!
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Summary: Reading Group Notes- Martha's & Alice's "Notes in the Margin
Review: Dr. Norman is an associate professor of nursing and the director of the doctoral program at New York University's division of Nursing in the School of Education. She has a specialty in nursing history. Her interest in the role women have played in the profession of arms is apparant in this gripping war story. Dr. Norman writes in her afterword, "This is the story of the ninety-nine army and navy nurses who went to war December 8, 1941." These women became the only group of American women captured and imprisioned by an enemy. On a monument erected by the men of the Bataan Death March, in the Philippines, the nurses are honored: "In honor of the valiant American military women who gave so much of themselves in the early days of World War II. They lived on a starvation diet, shared the bombing, strafing, sniping, sickness and disease while working endless hours of heartbreaking duty....They truly earned the name "The Angels of Bataan and Corregidor." This is truly a book best pondered in a group setting. As Dr. Norman studied these women she realized that she "was dealing not with individuals but with a collective persona." She reports that the women often answered her questions using the pronoun "we" rather than "I". Certainly this is the "we" of the title. Your Reading Group could discuss the relationships the women formed with one another and whether the "group" saved their lives. You could discuss how the women managed after they were freed from their captors and from their group. Your Reading Group could begin with a discussion of the history itself and branch off to discuss the response these women had to being at war; how they reacted when some in their group were evacuated early; how they reacted to imprisionment; how they reacted to leaving their patients and finally how they reacted to peace. This is also a book that lends itself to a discussion of lessoned learned. Dr. Norman concludes that she learned that "Loyalty, sacrifice, obedience and discipline are genderless." Would your Reading Group agree? Our interesting word selection is "Canard". A false or unfounded report or story. A groundless rumor or belief. While there are numerous humbling quotes from the nurses in the book, we selected a statement the author made in the epilogue as our favorite quote: "They (the women) prized their affiliation, their sorority, their womanhood because, as women, they were more naturally comrades than men. I do not mean to suggest that women cannot act independently or that among us there are no individualists....Instead, I think that men feel compelled to prove themselves in isolation, while women feel compelled to prove themselves in accord. The voice of a women is the voice of connection, and this inclination to keep close, to define oneself through affinity, kept the women going." Using your individual voices your Reading Group will once again connect over a book shared. Martha Burns and Alice Dillon are the authors of Reading Group Journal: Notes in the Margin (NotesintheMargin@aol.com)
Rating:
Summary: A Compelling Story
Review: Non-fiction at its best. This is an excellent story of the sacrifice others have made so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have today. I have long known of the nurse prisoners of war in the Phillipines. Now I know their story-a story that should have been told long ago. Thanks to Elizabeth Norman for helping us know these brave, strong ladies.
Rating:
Summary: What a revelation!
Review: What a revelation We Band Of Angels was to me- a Vietnam era USN nurse.At a time when women were still seen pretty much as accessories to the men in their lives, these nurses stepped forward, placing themselves squarely in the path of danger, deprivation and uncertain shifts in politics to do a job...and do it well. They were there to care for their charges, and despite threats,sacrifices and severe conditions, outstripped even their strictest expectations for themselves. I could not put this book down-wound up reading it when stuck in traffic, at the dinner table and when I should have been sleeping. Kudos to both author, and, belatedly, to those women of Bataan/Corregidor.
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Summary: Especially Meaningful to Me
Review: I couldn't put this book down. What a great story, and I am so glad someone wrote it. Well researched, and written. It's expecially meaningful to me as my brother was killed on February 3rd, 1945 while liberating Santo Tomas POW Camp. He was part of the 1st Cav Division "flying column", that were ordered to "go around the Nips","Free the internees and Santo Tomas." As a young kid at the time I was proud of what he did, I'm even prouder now. This book brings home the point that his death server a higher purpose. I'd like to thank the author for personalizing this for me. Some of our men died to take a "hill", "objective", all worthwhile objectives, but in this case it was human. "Greater love hath no man.......
Rating:
Summary: The nurse's story.
Review: This incredible, well written book tells the story of nurse POWs who overcame significant obstacles and yet continued to care for their patients. The nurses sufferred from malnutrition and were often as ill as their patients yet they carried out their duties. This book contains well documented and accurate depictions of the experience, an important book for all in the helping professions.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Special Book
Review: Dr. Elizabeth Norman has written a phenomenal account of the 99 military nurses who were captured and imprisoned in the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II. Having researched this topic through personal interviews, personal diaries and military records, the author introduces the nurses and then vividly describes their care of the wounded and sick, their ingenuity when equipment and supplies became scarce, and their own esprit de corps and valor. I marveled at the way they erected a hospital on the floor of the jungle with a canopy of trees after they were forced out of safe confines in Manila. I feared for their lives during the surrender and while they were imprisoned, especially after the Japanese military took control of the Santo Tomas prison. Their personal afflictions with malaria, dysentery, dengue fever, and beriberi were severe, and yet, they continued to provide nursing care to their patients.. The joy of their liberation brought tears to my eyes. I found myself referring to the assembled photographs so I could somehow relate to these women on a more personal level. I was happy that the author provided information about their later lives so that I could know what effect wartime and imprisonment had on these remarkable women. When the final pages appeared I found myself in awe of their lives and once again tears blurred the final lines. In my opinion this book should be an absolute "must read" for everyone in medicine and nursing. I highly commend Dr. Norman for authoring this outstanding documentary.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I stayed up all night finishing this -- I was so impressed, and fascinated by these women. Also, if the author reads this I'd like to thank her for writing the book, I found it very, very poignant that all of the women she wrote about, who by the end of the book I felt I knew like my own friends, are very, very old and many had already died by publication. It's a good thing she told their stories or we would have lost all those voices. Pretty amazing stuff, I thought it was very well written and absolutely riveting.
Rating:
Summary: An absolutely engrossing read!
Review: This is a stunning portrait of women in service who face death daily, yet never surrender their dignity or grace. You will never forget these remarkable women!
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Summary: A reader from Texas
Review: After reading the other reviews, I feel that I must support the sometimes criticized one-star review. This book is poorly written. Alternatively pretentious (using versimilitude for truth, diurnal for daily) and wordy, the writing in this book is so poor that it is only worth the effort is you are truly interested in the subject matter. I was not, and quit about halfway through.
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