War veterans' wounds go unimaginably deep (11/1/04)

War veterans' wounds go unimaginably deep
HOU0000020041102e0b1000es
STAR
LEONARD PITTS JR.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
789 Words
01 November 2004
Houston Chronicle
2 STAR
4
English
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
Let me tell you about Greg.

I met him in 1985, back when I was still a pop music critic. A guy named Paul Hardcastle had a hit that year called 19, all about the toll the war in Vietnam exacted on a generation of American soldiers. It inspired me to visit a veterans center and interview some soldiers, one of whom was Greg.

He was a black man with a whispery voice and a leg that scraped uselessly behind him, an unwanted souvenir of his time in Southeast Asia. Doctors wanted to amputate the leg, but he refused to let them.