Warrior Nurse: PTSD and Healing by Sarah L. Blum

TITLE INFORMATION

Warrior Nurse: PTSD and Healling

Sarah L. Blum

Black Rose Writing, 271 pages

9781685135690, 3.5.2025

Overall Rating = 4.17

Storyline & Concept = 5

Writing & Delivery = 4

Editorial = 3.5

This book is a deeply human account of war told from a perspective often overlooked: the nurse on the front lines of trauma. Set during the height of the Vietnam War in 1967, Sarah Blum’s story guides readers through her training as a young military nurse before plunging them into the chaos of the operating room at the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi, where lives hang in the balance amid harrowing conditions. The chronicle includes her return home a year later and her post-service experiences.

This book is more than a war memoir. It is written with emotion and compassionate intelligence. Sarah’s relationships with wounded soldiers add depth and tenderness to a brutally harsh setting. These connections humanize the statistics of war and remind us that every injury carries a story. The author’s vivid, unsparing detail draws us into her lived experience, making the reader feel her exhaustion, fear, and emotional toll. We follow her into the aftermath of war and capture her return home, which includes protestor hostilities and the slow emergence of PTSD. The author became a champion for veterans suffering from PTSD, and this is demonstrated in the second part of the book, which takes a much more clinical turn, offering guidance and tools for healing. This book is ideal for veterans, caregivers, and anyone struggling with mental health issues, particularly PTSD, or for those who want a clearer understanding of the true costs of war and the courage it takes to survive it.

Sublime Line: “A testament to resilience, to the unseen wounds of war, and to healing after unimaginable trauma.”

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