Life has not been kind to Jim Crosson.

That's why every Thanksgiving that he and his wife, Lorraine, have celebrated over the past 21 years has been special.

"I've been homeless, beaten up, stabbed, crushed, shot in the face, wounded, left for dead in 'Nam, survived a coma," said Mr. Crosson, 62, of Irwin.

He also is legally blind.

Despite all of that, he is upbeat.

"It's been interesting since June 3, 1947, the day I was born," admitted this disabled Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, a native of Pittsburgh's North Side.

It has been so interesting that he has authored a book, "My Walk Through the Valley," detailing his experiences.

His goal is "to give others who are traveling the same hellish road hope that a better life can exist."

"Yeah, not many Marines got a death certificate with their discharge from the service."

Mr. Crosson, an Irwin resident for 20 years, loves to talk about his "unique journey."

"Lots of stories, lots of memories, some bad, some good. I walked through the Valley of Death more than once, and I'm fortunate that I'm still here to talk about it.

"I'm not an author. Something -- God, I'm sure -- compelled me to do the book to get my story out there.

"That's why I titled it 'My Walk Through the Valley.' "

Mr. Crosson rides a motorized cart from his home at the corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets, several blocks down to Main Street and back up the steep, winding street almost every day the weather cooperates.

"Jim's become a fixture in downtown Irwin," says Mike Pochan, a friend. "He loves to chat with the old-timers over breakfast at the Colonial Grille."

Growing up in the Federal Street neighborhood of Pittsburgh without a father was harsh. His biological father left soon after his birth.

"That was my first taste of life. It was bad," Mr. Crosson recalled. "Life didn't get any better when we moved over to my stepfather's house in Sheraden in the West End."

He said his stepfather beat him incessantly. He ran away to New York City at age 16.

"I was homeless in Central Park," he recalled. "I still can't believe that ordeal."

He enlisted in the Marines and went to Vietnam as a demolition expert with the 9th Combat Engineers of the 6th Marine Division.

With 38 days to go on his tour of duty in 1968, Mr. Crosson was driving a truck behind a mine-sweeping squad of Marines on a road outside of Da Nang. The mine sweeper ran over an anti-tank land mine.

Mr. Crosson was thrown from the mangled truck.

"Six of my buddies were killed," he recalled soberly. "People thought I was dead, too. Somebody placed a death certificate on me.

"But I was helicoptered to a field hospital, then later sent to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where I was discharged in a full body cast."

The ominous blank death certificate was included with his discharge papers from the Marines. He was awarded a Purple Heart.

The document remains behind the framed honorable discharge hanging on a wall in his living room.

He is dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"One morning I was in the kitchen making breakfast," Lorraine said. "I heard noise from our bedroom. Jim was crawling on the floor. He saw me and motioned, 'Get down! Get down! They're shooting at us.' "

Following his recovery, anti-war sentiment got him stabbed in Savannah, Ga.

"I was still wearing a half-body cast," he recalled. "A guy stabbed me, but the knife didn't penetrate the cast. I should be dead. That's when I realized that somebody must be looking out for me."

Mr. Crosson also survived a horrific crash as a civilian truck driver.

"Wow! That was an adventure," he recalled. "I was driving a freezer truck overloaded with turkeys ... down Jennerstown Hill [on Route 30].

"It was icy. I skidded and skidded. The brakes got hot. They locked. ... I crashed head-on into pile of rocks and trees.

"I still recall hanging out of the door. I don't know how I survived."

Another time, he answered a knock on the front door of his North Side apartment at night. A mysterious intruder shot him in the right eye.

"That bullet finally crippled me," Mr. Crosson said. "It's still in my head. I was paralyzed. Blinded."

He spent time at Allegheny General Hospital and at a facility for the blind in Massachusetts.

"During that coma in Allegheny General Hospital, I felt life slipping away," he said. "I spoke with God. I fought to live and got over it. But I was very lonely."

Mr. Crosson, who had been married once, "reluctantly" placed an ad in a newspaper.

"It said, 'Disabled man seeking a good, trustworthy woman for companionship,' " he recalled.

Lorraine said: "Honestly, I debated whether to call Jim. My kids were against it. But I decided to take a chance. We got married 21 years ago.

"My son, Frank, met Jim's daughter, Laura, during our relationship. They got married. I guess some things are just meant to be."

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