From 4-F to U.S. Navy Surgeon General: A Physician's Memoir

In 1959, Harold M. Koenig was discharged after his first year at the U.S. Naval Academy because of progressive hearing loss and went on to college, then medical school. In 1965, the draft board notified him that upon completion of his internship in 1967 he would be drafted despite his disability—as the conflict in Vietnam escalated, many doctors with previously disqualifying medical conditions were reclassified as eligible to serve. Rather than wait to be drafted, Koenig volunteered for a Navy program that made him an ensign and paid all expenses for his final year of medical school. His memoir recounts his remarkable career path from 4-F midshipman to vice admiral and his service in the most senior positions in military medicine.