"Doc, do I still have my arms and legs?"

I realized how I had gotten to the hospital, and though I was uncon- scious at the time I could visualize the medevac chopper coming in to pick me up in the jungle clearing, loading my blood-soaked body on a stretcher, and leaving my legs behind to rot on the jungle floor.

"Yes, you still have all your limbs, and soon as you heal you'll be able to get up and walk around without any trouble. You were hit in the body, not anywhere else. You lost a lot of blood on the way in, but you'll be fine.

"Where was I hit?”

"Wait a minute, the head surgeon is on the way in and he'll explain everything to you."

I sat there waiting, wondering what the head man, a commander would have to be called in to tell me. I had visions of something a hell of a lot more serious than a flesh wound.

I found out my answer soon enough, as the grey haired doctor, dres- sed in tropical kakiis entered the room.

"You're looking chipper young man, you've had quite an ordeal and your war is over. You're on the way to Japan for an extended convale- scence and some plastic surgery, perhaps."

I waited for a moment for him to finish, and then I asked the ques- tion.

"What's wrong with me, anyway to have to pull me out of the country."

"If you remember the ambush where you were hit, the enemy had a fifty cal machinegun set up. When you charged, a fifty slug tore through your groin.

"You mean that I was hit in the balls?”

"Yes, I'm afraid so, and a little more than that, the shell missed your abdomen, but it ripped right through your penis, too. I'm afraid that you were completely emasculated. We operated and removed the rest,

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