Fifty-plus years later, Dr. John Kerner has gone through his wartime journals and letters home to come up with an insightful account of what it was like to be an infantry doctor in the most harrowing days of fighting in Europe.
His introduction to war was the carnage at Normandy shortly after D-Day. Omaha Beach was still littered with debris of war, and not all the dead had been recovered. Resourceful young Lieutenant Kerner improved on the first aid treatment and transporting methods of the wounded, saving lives of hundreds. He bucked hidebound superiors, insisting on the needed care of frost-bitten soldiers.
Attached to the 320th Infantry Division, the medical units in Kerner's charge pushed through France and Belgium into Germany. On the way, they endured some of the most brutal fighting of the war, the Germans ever more desperate to defend their homeland. Kerner's humanism permeates every page. His concern was for all wounded - friend and foe. Between the times of the mud and blood combat, he viewed the wondrous sights of Paris and Germany's picturesque Mosel Valley. The decorated young medical officer even candidly shars his intimacies with a few women overseas, in a time and place when living beyond each day was in serious question.
Review: "This book is a fascinating record of some wonderful - and some not so wonderful - experiences, as told by a keen and sensitive participant."
- Merla Zellerbach, author of Written House Square
"...Combat Medic is a page turner. Not that I could read it in one sitting. Even when I wanted to go on reading the Normandy chapters, I had to stop and swallow hard to relieve the lump in my throat."
- Professor Barth Marshall, UCSF, Fromm Institute
Bio: DR. JOHN A. KERNER has developed a loyal following of patients during his forty-plus year career in obsetrics. His lifelong interest and participation in the research and treatment of women's cancers has revolutionized the field and changed patient care for the better. He has taught medical students and currently treats patients at The University of California, San Francisco. Avid adventurers, Dr. Kerner and his wife have traveled the world an dmake their home in San Francisco.
