MIXED BLESSING

"Some days," Aponte says from Florida, "with all my trouble, all my problems and my moods, I feel like, damn, why'd I survive? But I know that's wrong, I should feel happy. I am thankful I could see my kids again, and my wife. I know that I owe one to God, a big one.

"So I feel blessed, really. And I feel mad because I know two other guys died. Sometimes I feel bad that I survived and they didn't. And I know Sergeant Camara had kids. So I feel it was unfair. I cannot see kids crying. Just to know that his kids have no father and my kids have a father -- it's a mixture. It's a mixed feeling. I'm glad and I'm not glad. It's hard to understand."

He catches himself complaining.

"I complain about this pain or that, but when I was in Walter Reed, I saw a lot of guys that were worse than me. I saw guys missing an arm, I saw guys missing two legs, an arm and maybe two more fingers. I saw a lot of guys who had brain injuries from Iraq, or from car accidents, and they were nothing compared to me. I mean, I'm talking to you, I know what's going on. These guys were acting like babies. I saw one guy that had diapers. A big Marine had diapers on. He cannot recognize nothing."

Aponte cannot work yet, but looks forward to working again.

"Any job I can get helping other people or animals," he says. "I feel like I have a second chance. I was alive and I died once. And I don't want to waste this second chance just working inside a store, you know? Does that make sense?

"I want to interact with people, as many people as I can. So when I die again, for my real time -- you never know -- when I die again, then I wanna feel like, OK, I did plenty on earth."