My father served in WWII as a medical assistant, a position he got by studying incredibly hard. So he never saw battle, and in fact spent the war sewing people up. But he saw his share of death in soldiers who never recovered from their wounds, and he saw gripping poverty among the native people in the Philippines. It was the poverty that moved him the most. He recalls many times giving his meal to native children, then doing a “midnight requisition” of jello — medical staff had the right, since they sometimes needed to eat at odd hours.