As a young soldier I was on my way to the Pacific Theater. The trip was at the height of World War II, with troop ships easy targets. To avoid the enemy our ship wove an irregular pattern across the ocean. The trip to Manila took 36 days. I was not a good sailor. Between sea sickness and infections, I was on sick call more than half the days. At one period I knew I had naso-pharyngitis, a condition for which I had often been diagnosed.

On sick call, the doctor said, "Well, what’s wrong with you," not in a pleasant way, because there were hundreds of men waiting. "I have naso-pharyngitis," Well, you can imagine how provoked the doctor was to have a buck private tell him what was wrong. "Well, what makes you think you have naso-pharyngitis?" "I have all the symptoms I had when doctors diagn…