The flag flies above the hardware store. There isn’t much of a breeze today. It moves with each gust, then becomes slack.
Flags hang from all sorts of places. They adorn bank buildings, supermarkets, schools, Kmarts, gas stations, beauty salons, auto shops, and libraries. There’s one on my front porch, too. I walk past it every day.
At the entrance to the hardware store, just beneath the flagpole, are Boy Scouts. I don’t exactly know what they’re doing. When I pass they look like they’re busy hard-selling a woman who’s buying some hanging ferns.
I walk through the store and get what I need—some screws, a replacement electrical breaker, and a half-inch drill bit. Then I check out.
My cashier wears a lapel pin on her vest that is a miniature American flag. Another pin bears the Army logo. Another is a mini POW/MIA flag.
“I like your pins,” I tell her.
“Thanks.”
“Military?”
“I just got outta the Army. I miss it. I wish I woulda stayed in. It’s hard going
back to this kinda life.”
She spent her formative years in the service, you could say. As a child, she knew she wanted to make it a career, ever since the first time she saw her father wear his dress-blues.
She was born on a military base. She was raised hearing the national anthem once per day over a loudspeaker. Her brother is Army. Her father is a veteran.
I thank her, and I tell her to thank her brother and father for me.
I step outside. The Boy Scouts ask if I need help to my truck. I don’t have anything but the one bag.
Then again, I write a column for a living. I’m always looking for things to write about. I hand them the bag.
One carries it. One follows.
I ask what they…