[2] At the age of 14, Mittemeyer emigrated to the United States during World War II.

Following initial accession training, he volunteered for the airborne forces since the 101st and 82nd had liberated his home country of the Netherlands during the war.

When Gen. Westmorland inquired why he was leaving, Mittemeyer pointed out that he was not in the regular army since he was not a citizen.

[3] During his tenure as Surgeon General of the Army and working in Military District of Washington (MDW), he instituted Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), later adopted by MDW-wide and now simply called Physical Fitness Test (PFT), a set of fitness tests including push-ups, sit-ups, and a timed two-mile run that now applies to all 85,000 military employees of MDW.

[1] He served as the chief of urological surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, and retired on August 31, 2010.