Medicine: The Way Back

Said the doctor: "You have cancer. You have .. . maybe only a short while to live." The 27-year-old patient at the Naval Hospital in Boston who heard these words four years ago was Lieut. Commander Edwin M. Rosenberg, Annapolis-trained veteran of war in both the Atlantic and Pacific.

While radiologists went to work on the melanoma in one of his kidneys, papers for Rosenberg's retirement were started through channels. By the time the retirement board got around to him, Rosenberg seemed to have recovered. Said he: "It's silly to say I'm sick. You ought to send me back to sea." But another medical examination revealed a cancerous area in the groin. Navy doctors went to work on that, and the board retired Rosenberg.

Each year on the anniversary of his retirement, Rosenberg has written to the Bureau of Naval Personnel, reporting himself fit and ready for active duty. He was assigned to a tour as an instructor in seamanship at the Naval Academy. He was fit enough to navigate a sloop in the grueling Newport-Bermuda race. But by a legal quirk, the Navy was powerless to put Rosenberg back on the active list without a special Act of Congress. Rosenberg started lobbying to get the bill through. Last week the Senate passed it, sent it to the House.

Said Rosenberg, itching for sea duty in Korean waters: "The only reason I'm telling this story now is so that others may see that . . . cancer does not necessarily mean a man is going to die right away."