Philip White 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 26. It was then reviewed and edited by a human.

Oral history interview with Philip White, Dartmouth Class of 1967, for the Dartmouth Vietnam Project. White recounts his early life and education, growing up in Indiana and attending Phillips Exeter Academy for high school. He describes his experiences at Dartmouth in the Army ROTC program, including his memories of the ROTC curriculum, anti-war activism on campus, and his decision to switch from a history major to pre-med due to his interest in ophthalmology. White discusses deferring his Army service to attend medical school and being called to active duty upon graduating in 1971. He describes his experience serving in the Medical Services Corps, where he treated soldiers returning from Vietnam at Fort Lewis, Washington, and was deployed on a mission to observe French nuclear testing in the Pacific. He details his later military career, including a year in Korea and a residency in ophthalmology. White concludes by discussing his life after leaving the military, including his medical practice and his involvement with Veteran’s Affairs (“the V.A.”).