Medic!: A WWII Combat Medic Remembers
Smith's engaging, well-illustrated memoir recalls two journeys, one in 1944-45, when he was in the U.S. Army breakout from Normandy to St. Lo to Paris and Germany, and the other in 1997-98, when with his wife, Fran, he returned to Europe. Gifted with a sense of humor, Smith appreciated the bureaucratic as well as the human aspect of the military, as, for example, when it took him only a moment on the way home from basic training to realize that Gene Autry had precedence on the plane because, after all, he had to see a sick horse. Smith describes both military and medic training effectively, and his combat accounts should revive old memories for other veterans and inform younger readers about World War II realities. Disabled with a knee wound, Smith missed the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest but was back for the Battle of the Bulge. Fifty years later, Fran spurred him to go the extra mile that brought memories to life again and eventuated in this book.William BeattyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved