Veterans
My Metro commute swings past the VA medical center. Two old veterans boarded and started talking. As they talked, I marveled.
They easily looked 10 years older than 52 and 54. During Vietnam each had considered running to Canada. Each ended up in the service, one with the 101st Airborne Division, the other taking it safe in the Navy Reserve. They chatted about weapons: qualifying on the Colt .45 and the old M-1 Garand; using the toy-like, “Matty Mattel” M-16; an incident on a boat, firing off a Tommy gun and accidentally shooting the wing off a seagull.
The older vet worked on the Alaskan Pipeline in the early Seventies before fishing on a 65′ boat for a dozen years. He mentioned unbelievably rough water, seeing 60′ waves, and being scared: “That’s like looking up a 6-story building!” They’d both been to Alaska—-before the Ala-Can highway was paved—-and had known its beauty. Cruise up the Inside Passage and the water was “so still, you could shoot pool!”
All they had seen and done. They were old and poor now, whiskered and haggard. Some years back the younger vet was homeless and for a couple hours’ warmth would ride the Route 174 back and forth to Sea-Tac airport. The older vet needed full hip-replacement surgery, but fortunately had full VA benefits, “Thank God.”
“Can’t believe how time flies. I wish I had saved up some money, instead of spending it on all the things I did.”
Tags:sophie