Combat Medic World War II : Milk & Cookies : 9781596874565 : 1596874562 : 29 Jul 2016 : Editorial Reviews From Booklist Called to active duty late in 1943, University of California-San Francisco surgical resident Kerner went to England with the Thirty-fifth Infantry Division in May 1944. Landing in Normandy shortly after D-Day, he was involved in combat for 264 days in France, the Low Countries, and Germany. He glorifies neither himself nor the military but, describing much individual and small-group heroism, shows how hard-pressed American forces, ill-informed about the enemy, often had to throw badly trained replacements into the front lines, where they naturally suffered many casualties. Kerner frequently describes personal highlights, such as diving for cover while assisting a patient and receiving the rarely given Combat Medic Award after riding the outside of a tank blasting its way through the siege at Bastogne. Kerner based the book on his letters that their recipients saved, a