Wrinkles & Honor

A life or service

He moved slowly… too slow for many in line at the airport. His cane made a creaking noise as he shuffled forward. Bent to the left, overweight.

Then I saw the hat.

That’s a Senior Chief Petty Officer.

A career grade E8 — a very senior non-commissioned officer. A leader. Someone people followed. Probably not a college grad, but the guy that held the entire damn thing together with courage, experience, and the scars to prove it.

Want something done right? Go see him.

Probably took him decades to make that rank.

He looked to be about 74 or 75, putting him right smack dab in the middle of Vietnam as an enlisted Seaman. A working man.

The kind with tattoos before they were cool.

My mind wanders back over the way I imagine his life played out…. lets say he was 24 in 1968, the year I was born, and I think of him strong while I’m weak, and how the roles of life’s have gradually turned like the tide, the caducity of it all suddenly visible and tangible to me as mist parts for a brief moment of clarity.

The things he’s seen and done. Years spent away from family … for me. For my freedom.