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B ernard Rice was a long way from home. Born and raised in Indiana, Rice wanted to fly fighter planes during World War II. When he reported for active duty on January 2, 1943, he told the corporal in charge, “I can fly and navigate. How do I get into the Air Force from here?” “The Air Force is filled up, buddy,” the corporal sternly replied. “Everybody wants to fly. I want to fly. If an opening comes up, I am going to get it.” Rice never got his wings, but he did become an army medic in the 82nd Armored Medical Battalion. The unit eventually found its way to Europe, where one day in the thick of battle, Rice rushed to the aid of a wounded GI with several bullet holes in his abdomen. “There was little hope for him,” Rice wrote in a 1997 article, “Recollections of a World War II Combat Medic,” published in the Indiana Magazine of History . “There were vital organs in that area, and he had so many holes. We sprinkled sulfa powder all over his belly and put on a compression bandage.” Despite Rice’s deathly prognosis, the GI survived “and returned to his company a few months later.” The sulfa powder, no doubt, played a huge role in the soldier’s recovery, as it stopped the wound from becoming infected. Although the drug (there were several of them), with its active ingredient sulfanilamide, was discovered decades before, it was during the war that Allied soldiers used the narcotic to kill disease-causing bacteria before it could spread and kill. All combat medics, Rice included, carried packets of the drug in their haversacks. Not only did sulfonamides kill infections, but doctors also gave them to soldiers to prevent meningitis, pneumonia, and urinary tract infections. Thousands of soldiers carried sulfa drugs in their first aid kits. “Once the United States was in the war, production of sulfa drugs rose rapidly to high levels that were largely sustained for the duration,” writes historian John C H A P T E R 1 Medicine in the Aftermath of World War II

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CHAPTER 1