Don “Doc” Rowe. Citizen. Soldier.: A Combat Medic’s Journey Through WWII

Having tended to the wounded as best he could, “Doc” shivered in the cold of the night and looked up at the full moon and twinkling stars sometimes visible in the partly cloudy North African sky. Soon, he would follow those stars. The groans of the wounded penetrated the darkness. Low whispers and hushed voices floated through the air. Blessedly, the ear-shattering crash, concussion, and shrapnel of exploding artillery and mortar rounds and the chilling shriek of incoming 88mm tank shells finally ceased after night fell. Once the black of night hid their movement from enemy eyes, the men of Cannon Company systematically destroyed all their remaining functioning equipment and all serviceable wheeled vehicles to deny the enemy their use. The now useless materiel would remain. He looked at his watch and knew that in only two hours, he and those able to walk would attempt their escape from the German encirclement and the dual specters of death or capture. They had buried their dead. Those wounded unable to walk and their one attending medic would spend the remainder of the war in a German prisoner-of-war camp. Follow an American GI and combat medic on his personal and transformative journey through the throes of the Mediterranean and European battle campaigns in the globe-changing conflict known as World War II. Married to Montez on 3 June 1943, Don entered the U.S. Army the next day. Initially separated by half a continent and then by an ocean, they began a three-year correspondence interrupted only by distance and war. Linked by love, commitment, courage, and resolve, both supported the other during “Doc’s” life-changing odyssey through North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, France, Belgium, and Germany. Read their words as penned to the other while both endured history’s most all-encompassing global conflict. Be there as he earns the Silver and Bronze Stars. Begin to understand why they and their peers have come to be known as the ‘Greatest Generation.”