The story began on a downtown Brooklyn street corner.
　An elderly man had collapsed while crossing the street,
　and an ambulance rushed him to Kings County Hospital.
　There,when he came to now and again,the man repeatedly called for his son.
　From a worn letter found in his pocket,
　an emergency-room nurse learned that his son was a Marine
　stationed in North Carolina.It seemed there were no other relatives.
　Someone at the hospital called the Red Cross office in Brooklyn,
　and a request for the boy to rush to Brooklyn
　was sent to the Red Cross director of the North Carolina Marine Corps camp.
　Because time was short the patient was dying
　the Red Cross man and officer set out in a jeep.
　They found the young man wading through some marshesin a military exercise.
　He was rushed to the airport in time
　to catch the one plane that might enable him to reach his dying father.
　It was mid-evening when the young Marine
　walked into the entrance lobby of Kings County Hospital.
　A nurse took the tired,anxious serviceman to the bedside.
　"Your son is here,"she said to the old man.
　She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened.
　The medicine he had been give because of the pain from his heart attack
　made his eyes weak and he only dimly saw the young man in Marine Corps uniform
　standing outside the oxygen tent.
　He reached out his hand.
　The Marine wrapped his strong fingers around the old man's limp ones,
　squeezing a message of love and encouragement.
　The nurse brought a chair,so the Marine could sit by the bed.
　Nights are long in hospitals,
　but all through the night the young Marine sat there in the dimly-lit ward,
　holding the old man's hand and offering words of hope and strength.
　Occasionally,the nurse suggested that the Marine rest for a while.He refused.
　Whenever the nurse came into the ward,the Marine was there,
　but he paid no attention to her and the night noises of the hospital
　the clanking of an oxygen tank,
　the laughter of night-staff members exchanging greetings,
　the cries and moans and snores of other patients.
　Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words.
　The dying man said nothing,
　only held tightly to his son through most of the night.
　It was nearly dawn when the patient died.
　The Marine placed on the bed the lifeless hand he had been holding,
　and went to tell the nurse.
　While she did what she had to do,
　he smoked a cigarette his first since he got to the hospital.
　Finally,she returned to the nurse's station,where he was waiting.
　She started to offer words of sympathy,but the Marine interrupted her.
　"Who was that man?"he asked.
　"He was your father,"she answered,startled.
　"No,he wasn't,"the Marine replied."I never saw him before in my life."
　"Why didn't you say something when I took you to him?"the nurse asked.
　"I knew immediately there'd been a mistake,
　but I also knew he needed his son,and his son just wasn't here.
　When I realized he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son,
　I guessed he really needed me.So I stayed."
　With that,the Marine turned and left the hospital.
　Two days later a message came in from the North Carolina Marine Corps base
　informing the Brooklyn Red Cross
　that the real son was on his way to Brooklyn for his father's funeral.
　It turned out there had been two Marines with the same name
　and similar numbers in the camp.
　Someone in the personnel office had pulled out the wrong record.
　But the wrong Marine had become the right son at the right time.

　And he proved,in a very human very,
　that there are people who care what happens to their fellow men.