As a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, Don Mangus has traveled to Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, South America, and Mexico, where between 1973 and 1993, he spent a total of a year and a half performing reconstructive surgical procedures. He has traveled overseas independently and with Project Hope, Interplast, Orthopedics Overseas, Care-Medico, and the Medical Benevolent Foundation. In South Korea, he treated and reconstructed massive burns and their subsequent deformities. In Addis Ababa in Ethiopia when the capital was surrounded by Eritrean rebels, he operated on the mutilating war injuries at the Army Hospital and at the Black Lion Hospital. Dr. Mangus has great compassion for the victims of war, trauma and disease. As past founder and director of a Northern California burn center, he reflects in this book his great feelings for the victims of the sometimes violent and tragic side of the human experience.