By DENNIS CONNOLLY

Staff reporter

When Ingeborg Johnston was a teenager, she was a German nurse helping soldiers injured in World War II.

When she was in her thirties, she was a Red Cross nurse helping American amputees from the Vietnam War get their balance back in swimming pools.

And now in her 80s, she’s helping men and women online, with food and exercise advice.

The energetic wife of an energetic Navy captain, Jim Johnston, has learned many things in life but perhaps the most important was the trauma she witnessed in World War II.

“Personally, having gone through a war, I realized there was a tremendous need for nursing care and I feel like it’s made a better person out of me. I will always be doing something for somebody.”

Few would argue.

Besides her nursing work during World War II, she ran a health food store in Pompano Beach, Fla., promoted health care, scuba dived in Jamaica, Belize and the Great Barrier Reef, rode motorcycles through Colorado, flew aerial combat missions in a T-34 above Colorado, and volunteered nursing assistance to Vietnamese orphans flown to America. She has been a paid or volunteer nurse for many years, spreading her nursing training through Europe and the United States.

Through it all, Johnston has believed that random acts of kindness performed from World War II through today help make it a little bit better for everyone.

She and her husband even started a hugging club in Florida and visited nursing homes spreading their tactile philosophy.

Jim Johnston is obviously proud of his wife and has helped her in her projects since they were married in 1977. They clearly depend on one another.

These days, they are promoting health knowledge, as opposed to health services.

Back when they started the health food store in Pompano Beach, there were none of the present-day credentials for people trying to promote health knowledge.

Health services (doctors, surgeries, medicine and health insurance) had lots credentials and the American Medical Association behind it.

Health knowledge (certified nutritionists, diet, exercise, raising personal health knowledge) had very little support.

The Johnstons helped to change that. They lobbied, coaxed money from the health food industry and got the title “certified nutritionist” protected by trademark.

They maintained that rather than waiting to get a disease and then going through the pills and paperwork that go with seeing a doctor, people should read about health first, improve their eating and exercise habits and get healthier: Get as healthy as you can.

Johnston remembers during that period she met a Florida matron who assured her that her health was fine because she had the best doctors and specialists around.

“I said that you might want to change that around,” Johnston said. “Because I’m in fine health and I don’t even have a doctor.”

Ingeborg Johnston has just written a book, “Collection of Acts of Kindness in War and Peace – The Unbelievable Adventures of a World War II War Bride.” It tells a great story and might help us all live healthier lives.