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 located in his pocket, an emergency room nurse learned that his son was a marine stationed in North Carolina. Apparently 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 an officer set out in an army vehicle.