I'm sitting at a table in the Fellowship Hall at Church where we are sharing our Thanksgiving turkey with other people in the community and congregation that did not have family to be with this season. An older gentleman (I'm old but he was older) was sitting across from me when someone asked a question about my Army service. When I used the words security agency his face lit up like a lamp. You were in the ASA? he asked.
The next forty minutes was a delightful trip back into history. He was one of the first 32 soldiers in 1947 to be sucked into the black hole of the National Security Agency and it's auxiliary service the Army Security Agency. As a private and 18 years old, he was one of the agency's first cryptologist.. Twenty years latter I followed him into a full blown agency of a much greater size and scope. And today, after forty years more, well you don't really want to know about what it does.
Our conversation took me back to one of the pivotal points of my life. That was when I left the Army and the agency. From that point on, I knew it was going to be all gravy. I had made it home alive. My mind was screwed up, my soul somewhat tattered, some of my was hearing was gone, had a disease acquired from not drinking enough bad water in Africa and Asia, but I was otherwise intact, and alive. I had beat the odds. From here it was all gravy and it has been. Easy no, but no one has tried to kill me since. No problems, not hardly but no one died when I made a mistake. No responsibility, I wish, but there has been a lot of that. However, since Nam, no one died when I did my job right.
You see it has been all gravy from that point on.
On this day of all days I am most grateful to be here, and that I came home alive.
2 comments:
We are all glad. Thoughts for those who weren't quite as lucky as you.
They never leave my mind.
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