After 47 years, US doctor returns Vietnamese soldier's bones from amputated arm

To keep an infection from killing his patient, Axelrad amputated the arm above the elbow.




Axelrad's medic colleagues boiled off the flesh, reconstructed the arm bones and gave them to him. He brought the skeletal keepsake home to Texas after the war as a reminder of a good deed performed.

The bones sat in a closet for decades, and when the Axelrad finally pulled them out two years ago, he wondered about their true owner.