Dr. David Hirst was a 34-year-old, small-town physician at the time Pearl Harbor was attacked. By summer, he signed up to serve in the Army Medical Corps, the first doctor in Miamisburg OH to volunteer. Given U. S. Army serial number 01 693 210, he trained in Texas and was sent to England in August 1942 to begin his service in the Fifth Army as an Army doctor, the oldest man in his battalion except for the chaplain, his dear friend Father John Kenney of New York City. Later he served at some of the fiercest battle sites of the war at Kasserine Pass, Hill 609, Monte Cassino, and Anzio in North Africa and Italy. In 1962 he retired from private practice to become the physician for Lebanon Correctional Institution. During his eight years at LCI he trained inmates to work as medical assistants, much as he had trained soldiers to serve as his medics during the war. Stephen Hirst, the editor and compiler of these letters, has also written the award-winning books I Am the Grand Canyon (2006) and Lauren Greasewater's War (2013). In addition, he has written the novel Chasing Antigone (2014).