From White to Khaki

No one could estimate just how many doctors would have to change their white coats for khaki shirts, or how soon, but last week the appeals for volunteers were going out. To 3,000 first lieutenants and captains in the Army Medical Corps Reserve, Surgeon General Raymond W. Bliss wrote: "We . . . have an immediate and distressing need for 354 physicians in the age and grade group which you represent. This . . . must be met and met promptly."

Main target of Washington's propaganda barrage was the pool of 7,500 physicians who did not see active duty, though they got their training during and after World War II at Government expense in ASTP and V12 programs. (Almost twice as many, similarly trained, put in their two years.) Editorialized the Journal of the American Medical Association: "The moral obligation that rests on them to serve the nation in this time of need is clear and unequivocal."

If doctors failed to see it this way, the Army was ready to call up reserves.

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