My dad yearned to be a doctor from the moment he saw ol’ Doc Weeks, the county physician, set a leg. At 16, he thumbed his way from Talking Rock, Georgia, to Atlanta, where he worked as an office boy. He was in a hurry. The war was on. Youthful impatience wore down his father, who finally signed the papers so Dad could enlist at 17.

He tested to be an airplane mechanic. Nevertheless, my father bumped into some brass and flatly told them he didn’t want to fight the war with a toolbox. He ended up as a pharmacist’s mate on an LST (landing ship tank). It was his first crack at hands-on healing.

After pulling wounded off Utah Beach on D-Day, Dad transferred to the Pacific Theater. The typhoons terrified more than the kamikazes. The LST crew could bellow clouds of smoke to camouflage the ship from divine-wind…