La Courtine: A Surgeon's Memoir

The book is a memoir of a field surgeon written in the first person as it happened.  From his receipt of his draft notice until his return after the war, the book reveals William C. Kintner, Sr.'s epic struggles as a field surgeon.  A practicing physician with a wife and son, and another child on the way, the U.S. Government drafts him into the Washington State National Guard in 1917.  Two months after receipt of his draft notice he is inducted into the U.S. Army, goes to boot camp in North Carolina, and then to advanced training at Camp Mills, New York. Shipped to France, through U-Boat infested waters, his ship is attacked by a U-Boat off the coast of Ireland.  Both torpedoes miss, and his war story unfolds upon his ship landing in Brest, France.  Through the U.S. Army's sanitary train support mission of saving fallen soldiers, First Lt. Kintner travels through a mirad of battle zones performing life saving surgeries.  As a member of a replacement division, he is reassigned a French Military Camp, and is ordered to assist French doctors in saving the lives of French soldiers.  His story, told on a week by week basis, touches the hardships endured by doughboys, and their support comrades.  The uncertainties of life during the war are compounded by the his many reassignments to new units.  Through it all, First Lt. Kintner, continues his duty.  Touched by the horrors of the First World War, he becomes a changed man after witnessing the worst atrocities imaginable.  The story is based upon true facts, researched for years, However, given the loss of all U.S. Army records in a fire in 1959, some of the events portrayed in the story had to be fictionized.  It is a tribute to a man who served his country during World War One.  His story is told at the end of his life, and his regrets and apologies are revealed in the Epilogue.