One of my Favorite Vets

A man set his basket of groceries on my register and looked at me. He was like 80. "Well, it's you and me," he said.

"What," I said.

"It's you and me against the world." Very serious.

I smiled quickly then matched his somber tone and said, "Do you have your weaponry?"

"No I don't believe in that stuff. I got enough of it in World War Two."

"Oh."

The woman who was gathering her change from the previous transaction overheard. She waited a few moments, as if gathering up the courage to do the right thing, looked him in the eye and said, "Thank you for serving our country." Her somberness was not in the same mockery tone as mine and the man's. She said this brave statement as if it were her good deed for the day, obeying the urges of Dr. Laura and PBS, who encourage us all to thank our troops.

The man looked at her a bit startled and said, "Well, I didn't have much of a choice. We were drafted."

I smiled at this. The woman did not. She hunched over her wallet again and mumbled something I could not understand. The man looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. The woman then said more clearly, "My father was in World War Two and he said you never return the same."

"Well, yeah. I'd think that'd be kind of obvious. It's a war, you know," he said.

Without a glimmer of a reaction, she walked out the automatic doors.

"I don't know how I got into that conversation."

"Does it make you uncomfortable?" I said.

"No."

I want to see that man again.