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A humerus reunion: US doctor returns arm he amputated from N. Vietnamese soldier in 1966
• HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- An American doctor arrived in Vietnam carrying an unlikely piece of luggage: the bones of an arm he amputated in 1966.
• Dr. Sam Axelrad brought the skeletal keepsake home to Texas as a reminder that when a badly injured North Vietnamese soldier was brought to him, he did the right thing and fixed him up. The bones sat in a closet for decades, and when the Houston urologist finally pulled them out two years ago, he wondered about their true owner, Nguyen Quang Hung.
• The men were reunited Monday at Hung's home in central Vietnam. They met each other's children, and grandchildren, and joked about which of them had been better looking back when war had made them enemies. Hung was stunned that someone had kept his bones for so long, but happy that when the time comes, they will be buried with him.
• "I'm very glad to see him again and have that part of my body back after nearly half a century," Hung said by telephone Monday after meeting Axelrad. "I'm proud to have shed my blood for my country's reunification, and I consider myself very lucky compared with many of my comrades who were killed or remain unaccounted for."
• Hung, 73, said American troops shot him in the arm in October 1966 during an ambush about 75 kilometers (46 miles) from An Khe, the town where he now lives. After floating down a stream to escape a firefight and then sheltering in a rice warehouse for three days, he was evacuated by a U.S. helicopter to a no-frills military hospital in Phu Cat, in central Binh Dinh province.
• ___
San Francisco Bay Area braces for traffic snarls as transit worker strike gets under way
• OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Commuters braced for traffic snarls Monday morning as two of San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit's largest unions went on strike, halting train service for the first time in 13 years.
• The walkout promised to derail the more than 400,000 riders who use the nation's fifth-largest rail system and affect every mode of transportation. Transportation officials say another 60,000 vehicles could be on the road, clogging highways and bridges throughout the Bay Area.
• The strike was called after an 11th-hour effort to resume negotiation failed to pro (Continued on page 24)
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