My husband, Norman Kunkel, is a retired educator who taught at Gregory Heights School in the Highline district during his whole teaching career of 25 years.

Now his life story has been published in the book WWII Liberator's Life: AFS Ambulance Driver Chooses Peace, which I co-authored.

Many adults may remember Mr. Kunkel, their teacher of old, helping to plant trees at the school, supervising the publishing of the school newspaper or holding white elephant sales to help starving children overseas.

Now he is recovering from a brain hemorrhage that threatened his well being for many months.

However, anyone who had lived through two years of wartime, including being downed by jungle illnesses, could not be defeated this easily. He is finally getting up to his feet again, however falteringly.

He was able to attend our 60th wedding anniversary recently. When asked how we managed to stay married that long, Norman replied, "If we split up now, no one else would have us."

Then he added to my relief, "Just kidding."

Since he served with a private ambulance corps he did not have the benefit of the GI Bill. Later, the American Field Service, which had operated the ambulance corps, worked to gain veteran status for all drivers who had served at least two months with the U.S. Armed Forces.

Since Norman served with the U.S. Occupation Forces in Italy helping to repatriate family members who had been separated during the war, he qualified.

Finally, in 1993, he received the medals he earned in the India/Burma campaign and with occupation forces in Italy and Germany, as well as the Good Conduct Medal.

The Olds family, whose children attended Gregory Heights, was active in the post-war AFS student exchange program, an intercultural program instituted to help bring peace and understanding to the world.

Norman and I were named honorary co-chairs of the AFS Greater Puget Sound, where we met with the exchange students coming from countries all over the world. They were excited to meet a real live World War II ambulance driver-especially the AFS people in Brazil.

There Norman showed slide images of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp taken by an AFS photographer right after the British opened the gates, revealing the horror of starved and diseased people mixed in with those who had died.

The audience was so moved they stamped their feet to show their appreciation-much like the Brazilian fans appreciated their soccer star, Pele.

It was years before Norman could speak about it all but finally, after meeting survivors of Bergen-Belsen, he began to talk to school students throughout the King County area.

I talked about it when I read my winning essay about Norman's life, including his Bergen-Belsen experience, on the Oprah Show in 1989, and Norman replied to my essay.

We realized that this story must be published.

During the period of polishing the manuscript, we both were privileged to attend the opening of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where President Clinton spoke as well as Elie Wiesel-a survivor of the Holocaust and author of Night, the book that opened up the horror of the Nazi atrocities.

Our book is not only a war story but also a love story of two people writing back and forth between the home front and a war zone.

It is also a testament to the fact that war is anathema and that every generation needs to gain the skills and empathy to live peacefully with all others on earth.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer and speaker and a retired Highline teacher and counselor. For more information on the book, e-mail her at gnkunkel@comcast.net.