So Much Older Then.

This memoir relays the experiences of Paul Kuehnert, a Midwestern teenager in the late 1960's who tried to follow his conscience at the height of the Vietnam War.

This memoir relays the experiences of Paul Kuehnert, a Midwestern teenager in the late 1960's who tried to follow his conscience at the height of the Vietnam War. After a little more than a year of increasing involvement in the burgeoning mass movement against the war, he determined that his conscience demanded total non-cooperation with the draft. He took the path of resistance, declaring publicly to his church community that he would not register for the draft when he turned 18. And now, some 50 years later—living once again through times of great division, moral outrage, and protest actions taken by thousands of ordinary Americans—his memoir challenges us to reflect on the impact of bold, personal actions and our willingness to take personal risks to a secure a better future.

Paul Kuehnert is a nurse and an executive leader in public health in the U.S. Paul's career choice—nursing—grew directly out of his experiences in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the late 1960's/early1970's. It was shaped, at first, by his desire to be contrarian: to bend gender norms by being a man in a "woman's" profession. Later, as he began practicing nursing, he found that it was not only a profession but a vocation. His commitment to nursing, particularly in his specialty field of public health, provided him with the means to act every day in concrete ways to further healing, build community and seek justice. He has done so for the last 45 years in partnership with others in several urban, suburban, and rural communities on issues ranging from infant mortality and lead poisoning to HIV/AIDS. Paul currently is the President & CEO of the national Public Health Accreditation Board based in Alexandria, Virginia. He resides with his wife in Hallowell, Maine.