My Friend Jack

In my work with teens each week, I frequently encounter a young man with whom I have been acquainted for about two years. He works at one of the venues frequented by my groups and previously was employed at another one of my occasional stops, so we have some history. We will call this young man Jack.

Jack, not much more than a teen himself, is very good at his job and delights in making my student's experience at his location a great one. Last week, as we walked a short distance together to greet a motorcoach full of my students, Jack was limping. When I enquired, innocently enough, I expected to hear that this young looking boy had broken his toe skateboarding or perhaps bunged up his knee on a mountain bike crash. I admit, I was taken aback by his answer. We have become good acquaintances and even friends in the time we have known each other. He told me he had been to the hospital "yesterday". I laughed aloud and quipped, "...and you are already back to work?! Most people wouldn't even come to work if they had a runny nose and here you are straight away from the hospital!"

His response, while jovial and light hearted wiped the smile from my face in an instant. He explained that he had been to the hospital to have yet another piece of shrapnel removed from his buttocks, shrapnel that had worked its way to the surface over time, shrapnel he carries today as a result of an IED explosion along a lonely dirt road in Iraq, shrapnel which he now carries in place of his two legs from the knees down. Those, he left on the battlefield.

This always smiling, youthful, "friend" of mine for going on two years now, has never given utterance to this fact. I have never before noticed his limp because of two prosthetic legs. Jack was previously a joy in my life as a friend. Today, he stands at the top of my list of those who deserve my absolute respect. Jack is an American soldier and at 21, a wounded veteran. He is soldier from head to toe but mostly in his heart. Yeah, Jack is my friend, but he is also my hero.

I stand at attention and salute Jack and all his "brothers" in arms who are willing to stand in the breach of their own volition and at their own risk to insure that you and I are able to remain secure and stay home from our difficult daily jobs when we develop a case of the sniffles. His is one friendship I value beyond measure and I now introduce him, behind his back because he hates the attention, to my students as a true American hero.

Thank you Jack, my friend, from the bottom of my heart. And, thanks to all you veterans who have volunteered to "stand in the breach".

That is probably not "all I'm going to say about that".