365 Days

Assigned to Zama, an Army hospital in Japan in September 1968, Glasser arrived as a pediatrician in the U.S. Army Medical Corps to care for the children of officers and high-ranking government officials. The hospital's main mission, however, was to support the war and care for the wounded. “They all came through the hospitals of Japan … the chopper pilots and the RTO's, the forward observers, the cooks, the medics and the sergeants... the heroes and the ones under military arrest, the drug addicts and the killers.” At Zama, an average of six to eight thousand patients were attended to per month, and the death and suffering were staggering. The soldiers counted their days by the length of their tour—one year, or 365 days—and they knew, down to the day, how much time they had left. Glasser tells their stories—of lives shockingly interrupted by the tragedies of war—with moving, humane eloquence.