In 1967, When I was 19, I “thumbed” into Northern Greece from Yugoslavia along with a an Italian “road buddy” who I’d met thumbing out of Belgrade. Somewhere on the road to Istanbul, while waiting for my next ride, I caught a piece of dirt in my eye, and it became infected while I travelled. My buddy Palo and I “side tracked” along the Yugo border with Albania(my god was it ever primitive…12th century country side and villages)and parted company “somewhere in Northern Greece”. By that time my eye was infected and my vision cloudy …I needed to find a doctor. I cant recall how I got to the northern capital city of Thesolonike (sp) but I remember walking up to a greek cop and asking him “hospital”(the only greek word that I knew). He looked in my road dirty face with one green eye and said “OK”…and led me over to a Greek Army hospital( remember the movie “Z”?). An army orderly, “accepted me” into the hospital and then took me into see a doctor. In minutes “The Doc” showed up…he was in uniform, grey haired and robust,..he said a few words in Greek to me, then sat me down and exaimed my eye. He told the orderly (who spoke some English), “Operation”. A short time later, I’m laid out on an operating table and in comes the Doc. Within minutes he had removed the foreign matter from my eye, given me a manly “light slap on the cheek” and within an hour I was back out on the street, with a “cool” black eye patch. Man, was I ever thankful for the Greeks being so hospitible. To this day I thank the Geek army doctor who saved my sight and the fact that I was treated without any consideration about if I could pay or not. That day in Greece, there was free help… altruisim at its best.