National Affairs: The Right Answer

On his first visit home to Joliet, Ill. last spring, Private Hubert Edward Reeves, a 19-year-old Army veteran of Korea, found huge stacks of letters waiting for him. Ed couldn't get around very well in those days, so he spent most of his time lying on the davenport while his mother read the letters to him. When one began, "Oh, my poor dear boy, how sorry we are that you have to lie there, crippled, not able to move hand or foot . . ." Ed would laugh and say: "Throw that one away, Mom."

Ed didn't want sympathy. He often told...

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