From December of 1941 until August of 1945, America was fighting what would be a battle of unprecedented challenges against what became to be known as "The Axis," a term that generated images of enemies possessing great military power, dogged ideological determination and a culture of amoral cunning. At the same time, the author of "Okay Men, This is It, A Combat Medic's Odyssey," 1st Lt. Herman Raines, was fighting his own personal Axis: the armies of the Third Reich, his own U.S. Military and an America both infected with anti-Semitism, complicated by the fact that he was still only a 19 year old high school graduate, who had been catapulted into the excruciating role of being the only possibly mitigating life or death salvation for scores of others, more often than not, themselves mere teenagers. This is also a story of a kid growing up in a Jewish neighborhood in 1940's Philadelphia, who had fallen in love with a girl in his high school chemistry class, who set off to conquer her by proving he could be an officer in the United States Army and make something special of himself, all the while trying very hard to prove the very same things to himself. Excerpted from the Foreword by Eric S. Sirulnik Professor Emeritus The George Washington University