Before he was a military man or a respected doctor, Sam Sampath was a high school student writing an essay on a family-oriented theme. As he sat and wrote, he imagined himself as the patriarch of his family, just like his own father. He imagined that like his father, he had two sons, and he named them Deepak and Rajesh because they sounded like good and appealing names. In Journey of an American Immigrant, he looks back at how he and his wife, Sulochana (which in their Indian language means "one with beautiful eyes") made his high school dream a reality by working hard and loving each other. He also looks back at his life from a boy in India to his military service and education at home and overseas-as well as the journey his family ultimately made to the United States of America. Another central theme is his work in India and in the United States as a doctor, which he continues to this day at age eighty.