Life's Linchpins

Sometimes I get to thinking back on a seemingly inconsequential event that changed the entire course of my life. I clearly remember an Autumn day in 1967, when I was walking home from the school bus stop (my North Dakota town was too small to have a school). I was cutting through a yard, when an elderly woman rocking on her porch said, "I'll bet you're eager to graduate from school (it was my senior year) and run off to war." Her words stuck me like a lightning bolt. The truth is, it had never occurred to me to enlist in the military. I never thought about the Vietnam War. But what she said suddenly told me everything I needed to know about my father's generation. They actually WERE eager to run off to war, to defeat the socialist Nazis, the fascist Italians, the imperialist Japanese, to win another battle in the eternal war against evil. I was ashamed that it had never occurred to me that I needed to give something back to civilization. After I graduated, I went straight down to the recruiting office and enlisted in the Air Force. That turned into a 24-year career. Although the population of that little farm town was only about 150 people, I'd never seen that woman before and I never saw her again. I don't know who she was, but I owe that elderly woman a deep debt of gratitude.