When All The World Was Young

By Ferroll Sams

This is the third part of the trilogy, where Porter Osborn Jr. is entering med school only to deliberately flunk it on the second year, so he can join the fighting forces. After some training and a lot more waiting spent due to bureaucracy, Sambo is finally sent to France as part of a General Hospital. Throughout the book, he is exposed to people of diverse backgrounds, helping him further to learn more about himself and reassess assumptions he was born into. It is interesting to see, how even though the young man (and the boy he was in the first two books) is always very sensitive and open minded, he still holds on to referring to the Civil War as War Between the States, and to honor the Confederate leaders while feeling bad at setting foot on streets or hotels named after Union Generals. [604 pp.]