Posted on by Californiacontrarian

A Real Hero

On Sunday I sat behind an old guy at church. He was really old!

He was sitting next to his daughter who appeared to be in her fifties, but there was no wife – obviously he was widowed. Every once in a while during the service, the old guy would raise his left hand up next to his ear, as if he was silently saying the boy-scout oath, left-handed. At first I thought he was trying to signal a friend, but after he did it a few times, I realized that all of his contemporaries were probably long gone, and perhaps this was his way of speaking directly to his creator. He appeared to be paying attention during the sermon even though I am sure that he had heard every variation of every possible sermon topic over his umpteen years. His handshake was an unusual combination of weak and firm, as if it had always been firm, but had been eventually weakened over his many years. Did I mention that he was really old?
It wasn’t until after the service that I “got it,” for it was then that I saw his hat, a baseball type hat that said:
“World War II vet
Korean War vet
Vietnam War vet
Retired vet”
I shook his hand when the service was over and in response to my comment on his hat, he softly said, “There aren’t many of us left.”

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