Summer of '69: Jim Sarosy

Sarosy, 60, grew up in Valley Stream and planned to have a career managing movie theaters - but then was drafted in 1968.

After arriving in Vietnam in the fall of 1968, I spent six months fighting as part of an Army forward base camp. Then I was assigned to a hospital unit much like the one in "M*A*S*H." They'd been attacked, and 16 clerks had been injured. They looked at my file and saw that I had learned to type at Central High School, so they made me a casualty clerk, typing the reports on the wounded. At that time, being a young dumb kid, you're looking at what's coming in off these helicopters and it's so difficult, so heartbreaking.

We had a code: "Either" means you're dead. "Friar" is wounded and likely going to recover. The worst thing you could possibly be is "smite," alive but in horrible condition. Honestly, when I first started doing casualty work I found that harder than being in the field, being shot at.

One guy came in July 1969 - both legs amputated, severe shrapnel damage to his back and arms. He was a complete mess. He'd survive only because of the medical care he got in the field and the copter that brought him out. I could barely look at him. I was doing the report on this man, and at that exact moment the Red Cross delivered a letter. It said his wife had just given birth to a son back home.

I thought to myself, ''Dear God, I hope you take him.'' He went to an American hospital in Japan, and we got a message saying he lived for another 19 days. I didn't turn against the war. I'm not political. No war is good, but I am so much for the young men that go to fight. I know the loneliness and the fear. You're scared to death, from the biggest, toughest macho guy to the smallest guy.