Silentium Est Aureum [Silence is golden] ... sometimes.

I was waiting in line at the registrar's desk at my doctor's office today, when a a short woman perhaps in her fifties was exiting the office. She came up to me, smiled, said hello as though we knew each other. "I see by your fatigue shirt you were in the military." she said.

"Well, yes....a long, long time ago...Vietnam." I replied - realizing I had thrown on a camouflage shirt with my army unit patches and insignia on it as an over shirt for the first chilly day of the season.

She took my hand squeezed it looked into my eyes and said "Well, I want to thank you so much for what you did for us ... may God bless you and keep you." And as quickly as she appeared she exited.

It was so sudden, and I was so off guard, that I couldn't even respond with anything more than a weak "thanks." ... which is probably a good thing.

Because if my once razor sharp reflexes, now dulled by sixty-seven years of longevity, .had the time to kick in I may have told her I did nothing for her, or this country; that no thanks were due me; that  if I had the maturity, intellect and and common sense back then that I have now  I'd not have volunteered for the draft and would be a Canadian citizen enjoying a fully paid for annual physical as well as free dental;  ... not to mention the fact there is no fuckin' God, and if there was I'd hold the damnable thing responsible for the 58,220 dead American boys and girls who died there for nothing.

Just as well it happened too fast. She wouldn't have deserved that.