I
walked out of Wal Mart today and got in my car. As I began to pull out,
I had to wait for a man in a wheelchair to pass by. As I watched him, I
noticed that he was missing his right
leg from the knee down and was wearing, what appeared to be, old,
government issued, combat boots. He was (from my guess) in his late
sixties/early seventies and seemed to be stopping to take a break. He
had not realized that I had started my car and was attempting to pull
out, so when he saw me, he waved in an apologetic manner and rolled
forward three more times and took another break. I backed up my car the
inches I had previously pulled forward, put it in park, turned off the
engine, and got out. I walked up to him and introduced myself. I asked
him if I could assist him with his shopping today, and he, quite
grumpily, said that he was doing just fine and was not getting much
anyways. Me, being as stubborn as I am, insisted and proceeded to push
him and tell him a little about myself. He interrupted me and said that
he only needed help to the door, to which I picked up where I had left
off before he interrupted me. I told him about Fayetteville, and my
horses, and my nephews (I had parked a good ways away from the doors).
And when I reached the doors, I continued to push him and talk. We
reached the produce area and I asked him to tell me about himself. He
reluctantly looked at me and began telling me that he lived in Sod-
Lincoln County, and that he just recently lost his wife. I asked him if
he was a veteran, to which he replied that he was- but with pain on his
face, so I changed the subject and asked if he had made a shopping list.
He handed me a list with only four things on it: peanut butter, soup,
bread, and bananas. So we began shopping and I continued to talk... hard
to believe- I know. Once we had gotten the items he needed, I asked if
he needed the essentials: milk, eggs, butter. He told me that he might
not make it home, without them going bad. So I questioned how he got to
the store. He told me that he did what he was doing in the parking lot
until he got to 119 and then hitch hiked with a trucker to the parking
lot. So I called a taxi for him and grabbed the essentials plus a few
other things and put them in the cart. After placing a gallon of milk in
his cart he was crying. People were passing by us, looking sideways at
him. I knelt down and asked him what was wrong and he replied, that I
"was doing far too much for an old man that I barely knew." I told him
that where I am from, and from the family I was raised in, we help one
another, no matter the task and that I had never met a stranger. I also
told him that he deserved everything I was doing for him because he
fought for my freedom and sacrificed so much. We made it to the check
out line and I paid for his groceries, against his request. When we got
outside, we waited for the taxi together. He thanked me over and over
again and appeared- to me- to have been in a much better mood than when I
found him. When the taxi arrived, I helped him load his groceries and
wheelchair into the taxi and asked the driver to take him home and help
him into his house with his groceries. I gave him the only cash I had on
me- $44, also against his will. I told him thank you for his service
before closing the door. Tears formed again and he thanked me one last
time and said, "God bless you." I returned to my car, and could not help
but cry. This is the world we live in today. How many people passed him
and would have continued to pass him while he struggled? How many
people are willing to give their money to Vanity Fair to read all about
Bruce Jenner and not help a veteran pay for his groceries? Today was a
truly humbling experience for me, and I consider myself extremely
blessed to have the capability of understanding what is truly important
in this world. THAT man was a HERO, and far too many will say otherwise.
I am sorry that this post was so long, and if you have read it to this
point, I hope you are as humbled as I was. God bless the men and women
who have fought for our right to view the wrong people as heroes, and
thank God for the people who know better.