The compelling true story of a troubled teenager who found both his manhood and his calling rather abrubtly when as a medical corpsman, he treated the wounds of those who fell in the killing fields of Korea during the early '50s. After sharing much of the fascinating history of being a medical student during those times following his discharge, he recalls many of his adventures as a young country doctor in rural Kentucky. He also capsulizes the many blessings of his first marriage, including raising a family of four children, then recounts the various woes of a marriage gone bad and ending in a painful divorce. The next part of his book details a memoir of his second marriage, this time to a remarkable nurse--an RN--who becomes not only his wife, but a close partner in his medical practice, and an officer and later the president of the international benevolent mission to Haiti known as MISSIONS OF LOVE, Inc., a medically oriented mission the two of them co-founded and over which Dr Bob presided until health issues prevented his continuing. Much of the book addresses their many years of organic living on a horse farm in Kentucky, and contains many excerpts from his journals of their farming and gardening, along with several of his poems written in those days. The Johnsons were also blue water sailors and Dr. Bob regales his readers with many of their adventures in sailing throughout the Caribbean over the years.
About the Author: Dr. Robert T. Johnson learned much of his medical art and crafts during the Korean War in treating hundreds of those who fell in that bloody conflict. After discharge from the US Air Force he undertook his premed education at Kentucky Wesleyan College, his medical training at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Dayton, Ohio. He then developed a very large and busy family practice in rural Kentucky, while also pursuing a second career as a writer of medical advice columns for popular magazines; such as Woman's World and Outdoor Life. He received recognition as "Kentucky Physician of the Year" in 1983, and was one of the ten top finalists in the nation for Goodhousekeeping's "Doctor of the Year" award. Dr. Bob is an avid "Caribophile" from his sailing adventures throughout the Caribbean, which led he and his RN wife, Betty to the country of Haiti where they were both so moved by the intense poverty and suffering of their people they co-founded MISSIONS OF LOVE, Inc., now a mission of international scope operating a modern clinic and hospital in a remote area there, including several educational, social, and evangelical programs operating currently. Their experiences in the immediate aftermath of the horrendous earthquake which destroyed much of the capitol city of Port-au-Prince in 2010 are graphically detailed in his autobiography, The Calling, published in April of 2017. The Johnsons having had six children by former marriages, have also been avid farmers, ornithologists, bee keepers and breeders of both cattle and horses on their 104 acre farm near Hartford, Kentucky. He includes many journal notes and much of his poetry written during those times in this compelling autobiography.