A gathering of American heroes

So Dow, 25, asked that his bed be wheeled into the room where the Sox had come directly from a ceremony at the White House, even though it was less than an hour after doctors had finished putting a metal plate and eight screws in his fractured left arm, worked on his fractured left leg and torn-up Achilles' tendon, and treated the shrapnel wounds in his right leg.

"I told the nurses, `You gotta hurry up, let's get this show on the road,' " Dow said.

This was the place where Curt Schilling slipped off the World Series ring he'd won in Arizona and placed it on the good hand of a kid who had part of his right arm blown off. Where Tito Francona sat huddled with another kid who'd been victimized by a suicide bomber. Where Theo Epstein held up the World Series trophy for a double amputee. Where PFC Paul Skarinka -- who had been part of the Whitman, Mass., fire rescue team before he got sent to Iraq and was now undergoing therapy to try to regain the feeling he lost in his left hand and foot after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Sadr City -- sported his Sox cap while talking with Johnny Damon and Billy Mueller and Trot Nixon and the other players who stopped to visit.

"I got beat up real bad," Skarinka said.

Dow, who'd played lacrosse at BC High before becoming a first lieutenant in the 11th Armored Cavalry Second Regiment -- the Black Horse Regiment -- wasn't going to miss this.

"It's such an honor to meet you," catcher Jason Varitek said, leaning over Dow and taking his hand.

"It's an honor to meet you, sir," Dow said.

Larry Lucchino complimented him on his cap. David Ortiz came over and signed a ball. Tim Wakefield was at his side when Dow told his story of what happened that day in Iskandariyah, a town so far from pastoral Milton, a place about 30 miles south of Baghdad.

"I'm a platoon leader," Dow said, "and we were out on patrol. We'd been looking around for a vehicle, and we saw a vehicle parked on the right side of the road.

"The platoon took a short halt, and we all dismounted from our vehicles. As we approached, they blew up their vehicle.

"Fortunately, I was the only one who got hit. I was able to get my guys out of there."