Georgia Military Veterans’ Hall of Fame Spotlight
Attention All Georgia Military Veterans!
12 | November 2018 | Real Hero Report
John Henry Burson, III
2017 Georgia Military Veterans’ Hall of Fame Inductee (Achievement)
United States Army Lieutenant
Colonel (Ret) and Medical
Doctor John Henry Burson, III
from Carrollton, Georgia was inducted
into the Georgia Military Veterans’
Hall of Fame Class of 2017 for his
remarkable achievements as an engineer
and as a physician in both his civilian
and military careers.
Burson earned a Bachelors, a Masters,
and a PhD degree in Engineering from
Georgia Tech and later, he earned a
Medical degree from Emory University
School of Medicine. For 30 years, Dr.
Burson was a dedicated and seless
army surgeon, volunteering for ve
Mid-East deployments. In 1975 he
accompanied an Army National Guard
clinic to Iraq and was later diverted to
the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, where
he oversaw the medical treatment of
Saddam Hussain as he threatened a
fast. Dr. Burson resolved this situation quickly with a promise to
perform a tracheotomy. When he learned that the main hospital
in Bagdad lacked an Ear, Nose, and Throat surgeon, he spent his
off-duty hours performing this much needed service.
Despite having to accept mandatory
Army Reserve retirement in l994, and
even as he set-up his medical practices
in Carrollton and Villa Rica and
becoming the Chief of Staff at Tanner
Medical Center, he was not nished
serving his country. He volunteered for
two combat tours in Iraq in 2005 and
2007, serving with a Military Police
unit at a detention camp which held
high-value prisoners. Still not nished,
he volunteered in 2009 for deployment
to Afghanistan with an Army Infantry
Battalion at an outpost receiving hostile
artillery re and where four medics
had been killed. His last volunteer stint
was in 2011 when he served with Army
Special Forces near Kabul, Afghanistan.
During his last deployment, he
celebrated his 77th birthday, making
him the oldest Army doctor on active
duty.
Dr. Burson continues to demonstrate, daily, his love of country
and our nation’s veterans through his pro bono work at the
Carrollton VA Clinic.