Fields of Fire Paperback – June 13, 2007

Although this book was published a few years back, I only recently learned about it from a high school classmate. Fields of Fire, like many other books about sexual assault and the resulting life-long trauma victims suffer, is disturbing and at times hard to read, but a very well told story nonetheless. Carol Ogg writes about the experiences of her principal character, Gail Ann, in abrupt sentences that are conveyed with a force that strikes like a punch. The story is written in a narrative style that sounds autobiographical in nature, similar to Tammy Gagnon's moving personal story of her own life, No Longer Silent. I do not care to speculate whether Gail Ann's experiences are those of the author, but they are easily imaginable as having been real ones. Any writer who's imagination is such that their characters sound true risks a reader inferring that the author is describing his or her own feelings and experiences, which is probably incorrect more often than not. However, I can attest that Carol's descriptions of growing up in Wyoming, waiting at a train station in a small town on the plains for someone to arrive, and about life in the Viet Nam era Army, are all accurate ones. This is not a book that every person would enjoy reading, but it is a well written story about a person's life, real or imagined, that has been influenced by a horrible childhood experience, and the difficulties that person has faced because their sexual orientation is toward their own gender. It is told with a courageous truthfulness that deserves compassion and it is well worth reading by those unafraid to accept that the lives of many people are far from being enviable.Reviewed by Michael Link (Colorado)

Good, honest tale of the WAC during the early Vietnam era. I remember Carol Ogg ( or Oggie, as we called her) when she was in the WAC Band. My only criticism is that there should have been a small separation between thoughts. Several times, I had to go back to previous paragraphs to realize that a whole new topic was being covered.

I had a SFC Ogg as my drill sergeant for basic training in July 1974 at Fort Jackson. Like the character in the book, she was tough but had a good heart. I have no idea if it was the same Sergeant Ogg but enjoyed reading it with her in mind.

Vietnam as experienced by a woman in a day when women usually were not near war zones. I found it to be riveting. I know it's fiction, but I can't help but think that it's based on reality.

Fields of Fire is a difficult book to read. This 167 page book will leave you shaking your head at times, bring you to tears at other times and make you angry more times than you can count.The book follows the life of a young girl through her childhood into adulthood. Each chapter seemed to deal with a piece of her life. Warning--the first chapter is quite upsetting as is the eleventh. Rapes, college, military career, loves and losses were all included within these pages.The majority of the book covers her time in the Army. She briefly introduces the reader to people in her life then and takes you to the different forts she was assigned. But being the type of person I am I was hoping she would go more in depth about her career itself and the places she went. However this was mostly passed over as being merely mentioned.Was this Carol Ogg's auto-biography using alternative names throughout the book? Or was it simply a novel about Gail Westbrook? Most readers will never know for sure. Having corresponded with Carol I won't tell others what I know about her or this book.It is an interesting read published by Xlibris. Pick up a copy and make up your own mind.

This book is a very interesting and well written book. Not the usual way books are written or at least in my experience. It is like a slide show of events in the narrator's life. I know it is written as fiction, but I can't help thinking that the way it is written, the events really occurred. I highly recommend the book, as I have not seen many books written about the experience of women in Vietnam, especially such a private and intimate look. It is not easy to read, because of some of the content, but it will keep you turning the pages.