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<\/a>There was only one chair available. It was stuck in a corner, near the guy in uniform.<\/p>\nAnyone sitting here? I asked.<\/p>\n
No, he said.<\/p>\n
Mind if I do?<\/p>\n
Not at all.<\/p>\n
In Columbus, Georgia, soldiers in camo gear are a common sight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hardly ever wear mine out,\u201d \u00a0the soldier told me later. \u201cWhenever I do somebody wants to thank me or buy me a drink or dinner. It\u2019s nice but I don\u2019t feel deserving of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s common too \u00a0\u2014 that those most deserving of attention like it the least.<\/p>\n
Knowing these things in advance, I made a choice to give the soldier his personal space. I sat up my computer and began to work, purposely choosing to not engage him in conversation. I didn\u2019t have much time anyway. I was meeting someone for lunch in 30 minutes. I went into the Starbucks for no other reason than to catch up on some correspondence. Hard to get anything done when you\u2019re driving, driving, driving.<\/p>\n
I hope my cell phone doesn\u2019t interfere with your connection, he said.<\/p>\n
Oh, no, not at all, I replied. But I\u2019m probably going to need a parka in here. I\u2019m not used to this air conditioning.<\/p>\n
Feels good to me, he said. It\u2019s been hot here. I\u2019m from Montana and not used to the heat.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how the conversation began. All causal like, about nothing and everything all at once. They call it small talk but in reality, there\u2019s nothing small about small talk. If a person really listens even the gaps between the words can be revealing.<\/p>\n
I was listening when he told me that his daddy was a rancher in Montana, or had been until his mama died, a few years ago. What I heard in the words the soldier didn\u2019t say was how much he misses his mama.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a fighter,\u201d he said, all set jaw and misty-eyed.<\/p>\n
Fighter is the word we use when we talk about people struggling with a disease, when they die in an unpleasant way. It\u2019s not what we say about somebody dying quickly, the way they do sometimes with a heart attack.<\/p>\n
The Ranger insignia on his left-shoulder told me that he\u2019s a fighter, too. I know tough men who have flailed Ranger school, been turned away, even though they were good soldiers.<\/p>\n
He had dark hair, dark eyes, charming smile. European good-looks. The sort that could land him a spot on Survivor Island or the cover of GQ.<\/p>\n
Married & divorced.<\/p>\n
Somebody from back home? I asked.<\/p>\n
Yes. No hard feelings though, he said. \u201cI messed it up. I had a drinking problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result of PTSD, I asked. Or just growing up a farm kid in Montana?<\/p>\n
He\u2019d already told me that he\u2019d done three tours in in Iraq.\u00a0He\u2019d told me about his brothers, too.<\/p>\n
One died, he said. The other, well, he shrugged, indicating a lost cause or lost soul. Maybe both.<\/p>\n
Killed-in-action? I asked about the brother now dead. I don\u2019t know why I asked that. I just did.<\/p>\n
Yes, he said. Afghanistan. Last year.<\/p>\n
They\u2019d enlisted together, these brothers. They\u2019d promised their mama they\u2019d never join the military but 9-11 changed all that. His older brother called him and said, I\u2019m enlisting and you are going to drive me to the recruiting center. So he did, and joined up himself in the process. He was already educated, had a fancy degree from University of Portland.<\/p>\n
Oh, one of those liberals, I\u2019d said, laughing. He\u2019d laughed,too.<\/p>\n
Their mama hit the roof when the brothers told her what they\u2019d done.<\/p>\n
Y\u2019all had a big fight, huh? I said.<\/p>\n
Yes, he admitted. We did.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t say it but I could see it beneath those dark lashes, he feels bad about that fight now \u2014 now that his mama is dead, now that he\u2019s seen three tours of duty in Iraq, now that his brother is buried beneath a cold marble slab.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m proud of him, he said.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure you are, I said, but I know how empty pride can feel when it\u2019s your brother.. or father.. you\u2019re missing.<\/p>\n
He just shook his head in understanding.<\/p>\n
William Stafford says every war has two losers, I said.<\/p>\n
Yes, he nodded.<\/p>\n
Even so, he wants to go to Afghanistan, to fight in the war that cost him his brother.<\/p>\n
I understand, I said. But you know how important it is to have someone like you, someone who has been on the battlefield to teach a new generation the ropes of what it means to be a Ranger.<\/p>\n
Yes, he agreed. We no longer ask if someone has done a tour \u2014 we want to know how many tours they\u2019ve done. If it\u2019s only one, we\u2019re suspicious of them.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll bet.<\/p>\n
He told me about the one tour where he earned that Bronze Star. They were clearing an area, looking for insurgents. He jiggled the door knob, right before the bright white flash that knocked him backwards and sent a plume of smoke up from his chest. He thought he was dead but then he saw the fellow with the gun walking towards him.<\/p>\n
It seems funny to him now, how he thought he was already dead or dying, what with that smoke rising up and him not being able to breath, but worried at the same time that the guy was going to shoot him in the face and that was going to hurt something fierce. So he reached up to the revolver strapped to his right shoulder and shot the man.\u00a0Nothing sexy about it, he said. Just firing. Boom. Boom. Boom. The man fell backwards and he rose up.<\/p>\n
The gear which he didn\u2019t have the year before protected him that day. He rushed into the house and saw a child there, a young boy, pointing a gun at him. A lot of soldiers might have panicked, might have killed the kid. But not him. He kept his cool, acted responsibly despite the threat to his own life. He was able to get the kid to give up his weapons without any more bloodshed. Deeds like that deserve recognition but the best part of all that is not carrying around the PTSD that surely would have been his burden had he killed the young boy.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the thing about enemies that the history books and thriller novels never mention \u2014 how much they look just like us, especially when they are afraid.<\/p>\n
I told him about Destre, whose father was a Ranger. And about how Destre says that some kids think it\u2019s cool when your daddy dies in war but how Destre knows it\u2019s not \u2014 it hurts.<\/p>\n
Wow, he said. What an articulate boy.<\/p>\n
Very, I said. Smartest boy ever.<\/p>\n
Destre understands what those who order others to war fail to \u2014 that if we raise up a generation of young kids who think that war is a cool thing then we\u2019ve become exactly like our enemies.<\/p>\n
American jihadists.<\/p>\n
I gave him a copy of After the Flag<\/em> and told him if he ever gets back to Oregon, I know this really wonderful girl\u2026<\/p>\nThere was a torrential rain driving into Birmingham, but I hadn\u2019t been able to see the road since outside Opelika, while praying for that\u00a0soldier named Tim, the brother he misses, and their dead mama, who was surely proud of them both.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There was only one chair available. It was stuck in a corner, near the guy in uniform. Anyone sitting here? I asked. No, he said. Mind if I do? Not at all. In Columbus, Georgia, soldiers in camo gear are a common sight. \u201cI hardly ever wear mine out,\u201d \u00a0the soldier told me later. \u201cWhenever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,356,834,1409,1644,1658],"class_list":["post-2849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-afghanistan","tag-conversation","tag-iraq","tag-ranger","tag-starbucks","tag-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>There was only one chair available. It was stuck in a corner, near the guy in uniform.<\/p>\n