Touchful  & thoughtful ! Good message any time.

I  put my carry-on in the luggage  compartment and sat down in my  assigned seat. It was going to be a  long flight. ‘I’m glad I have a  good book to read. Perhaps I  will get a short nap,’ I  thought.

Just  before take-off, a line of soldiers  came down the aisle and filled all  the vacant seats, totally  surrounding me. I decided to start  a  conversation.

‘Where  are you headed?’ I asked the soldier seated  nearest to  
me. ‘Petawawa. We’ll be  there for two weeks for special  training, and then we’re  being
deployed to Afghanistan.

After  flying for about an hour, an announcement  was made that sack lunches were  available for five dollars… It  would be several hours before  we reached the east, and I quickly  decided a lunch would help pass the  time…

As I  reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask  his buddy if he planned to buy  lunch.  ‘No, that seems like a  lot of money for just a sack  lunch. Probably wouldn’t be worth  five bucks. I’ll wait till we get  to base.’

His  friend  agreed. I  looked around at the other  soldiers. None were buying lunch. I  walked to the back of the plane and  handed the flight attendant a fifty  dollar bill.  ‘Take a lunch to  all those soldiers.’ She grabbed  my arms and squeezed tightly. Her  eyes wet with
tears, she thanked  me. ‘My son was a soldier in Iraq ;  it’s almost like you are doing it  for him.’

Picking  up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where  the soldiers were seated. She  stopped at my seat and asked,  ‘Which do you like best – beef  or chicken?’ ‘Chicken,’ I  replied, wondering why she asked.  She turned and went to the front of  plane, returning a minute  later with a dinner plate from  first  class.

‘This is  your  thanks.’

After  we finished eating, I went again to  the back of the plane,
heading for  the rest room.  A man  stopped me. ‘I saw what you did. I want  to
be part of it… Here, take  this.’ He handed me twenty-five  dollars.

Soon  after I returned to my seat, I saw  the Flight Captain coming down the  aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as  he walked, I hoped he was not  looking for me, but noticed he was  looking at the numbers only on  my side of the plane. When he got  to my row he stopped, smiled, held  out his hand and said, ‘I want to  shake your hand.’ Quickly unfastening  my
seatbelt I stood and took the  Captain’s hand. With a booming  voice he said, ‘I was a soldier and  I was a military pilot. Once, someone  bought me a lunch. It was an act of  kindness I never forgot.’ I was  embarrassed when applause was heard  from all of the  passengers.

Later  I walked to the front of the plane  so I could stretch my legs. A man  who was seated about six rows in front of  me reached out his hand, wanting to  shake mine. He left another  twenty-five dollars in my  palm.

When we  landed I gathered my belongings and  started to deplane…  Waiting just  inside the airplane door was a  man who stopped me, put something  in my shirt pocket, turned, and  walked away without saying a word.  Another twenty-five  dollars!

Upon  entering the terminal, I saw the  soldiers gathering for their trip  to the base.
I walked over  to them and handed them  seventy-five dollars. ‘It will take  you some time to reach the base.   It will be about time for a  sandwich. God Bless  You.’

Ten  young men left that flight feeling  the love and respect of their  fellow  travelers.  As I  walked briskly to my car, I  whispered a prayer for their  safe return. These soldiers were  giving their all for our country. I  could only give them a couple  of meals. It seemed so  little…

A  veteran is someone who, at one  point in his life, wrote a  blank check made payable to ‘The   United States of America  ‘  for an amount of ‘up to  and including my  life.’

That is  Honor, and there are way too many  people in this country who no  longer understand  it.’

Categories: Articole de interes general