John Talmadge oral history interview

The Scope and Contents note of this oral history was originally generated by feeding the electronic transcript into OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4o on 2024 August 19. It was then reviewed and edited by a human.

Oral history interview with John M. Talmadge, Dartmouth Class of 1969, for the Dartmouth Vietnam Project. Talmadge recounts his early life growing up in Texas and his decision to attend Dartmouth, where he was a member of the football team and ROTC. He details the political environment on campus and how the influence of professors and peers led him to oppose the Vietnam War and drop out of the ROTC. He discusses his involvement in anti-war activism after graduation, including attending the 1969 March on Washington. Talmadge describes his work at the Quang Ngai Rehabilitation Center in Vietnam in 1972 while still a medical student, where he used his medical training to fit prosthetics for civilians despite limited resources. He recalls performing surgeries under challenging conditions and encountering dead and wounded civilians.