Many of you have seen the story below before.  It’s been around a while.  It struck me and has stayed with me since I first read it. 

As I came out of the supermarket that sunny day, pushing my cart of groceries towards my car, I saw an old man with the hood of his car up and a lady sitting inside the car, with the door open. The old man was looking at the engine. I put my groceries away in my car and continued to watch the old gentleman from about twenty-five feet away.

I saw a young man in his early twenties with a grocery bag in his arm walking towards the old man. The old gentleman saw him coming too and took a few steps towards him. I saw the old gentleman point to his open hood and say something. The young man put his grocery bag into what looked like a brand-new Cadillac Escalade. He then turned back to the old man. I heard him yell at the old gentleman saying: "You shouldn't even be allowed to drive a car at your age." And then with a wave of his hand, he got in his car and peeled rubber out of the parking lot.

I saw the old gentleman pull out his handkerchief and mop his brow as he went back to his car and again looked at the engine. He then went to his wife and spoke with her; he appeared to tell her it would be okay. I had seen enough, and I approached the old man. He saw me coming and stood straight, and as I got near him, I said, 'Looks like you're having a problem.' He smiled sheepishly, and quietly nodded his head. I looked under the hood myself, and knew that whatever the problem was, it was beyond me.

Looking around, I saw a gas station up the road, and I told the old man that I would be right back. I drove to the station, and I went inside. I saw three attendants working on cars. I approached one of them and related the problem the old man had with his car. I offered to pay them if they could follow me back down and help him.

The old man had pushed the heavy car under the shade of a tree and appeared to be comforting his wife. When he saw us, he straightened up and thanked me for my help. As the mechanics diagnosed the problem (overheated engine), I spoke with the old gentleman. When I shook hands with him earlier, he had noticed my Marine Corps ring and had commented about it, telling me that he had been a Marine too. I nodded and asked the usual question, 'What outfit did you serve with?' He had mentioned that he served with the first Marine Division at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu…. He had hit all the big ones and retired from the Corps after the war was over.

As we talked, we heard the car engine come on and saw the mechanics lower the hood. They came over to us as the old man reached for his wallet but was stopped by me. I told him I would just put the bill on my AAA card. He still reached for the wallet and handed me a card that I assumed had his name and address on it and I stuck it in my pocket. We shook hands all around again, and I said my goodbyes to his wife.

I then told the two mechanics that I would follow them back up to the station. Once at the station, I told them that they had interrupted their own jobs to come along with me and help the old man. I said I wanted to pay for the help, but they refused to charge me. One of them pulled out a card from his pocket, looking exactly like the card the old man had given to me. Both of the men told me then that they were Marine Corps Reserves. Once again, we shook hands all around and as I was leaving, one of them told me I should look at the card the old man had given to me. I said I would and drove off.

For some reason I had gone about two blocks, when I pulled over and took the card out of my pocket and looked at it for a long, long time. The name of the old gentleman was on the card in golden leaf and under his name was written: 'Congressional Medal of Honor Society.' I sat there motionless, looking at the card and reading it over and over. I looked up from the card and smiled to no one but myself and marveled that on this day, four Marines had all come together because one of us needed help.

Two reasons this story struck me.  One, I had a step-great uncle, one of my stepdad’s uncles.  I didn’t know much about him except he seemed to make a good living with his plumbing company and never missed Mass on Sunday.  Every other moment it seemed he was at the VFW, where we often found him quite drunk.  One day, when I asked about a sword sitting in the corner of his house- he was already into about a case of Carling Black Label beer by then- he told me it was a Japanese sword, and that he was in the 1st Marine Division and had been at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu.  I was surprised to learn that about him.  I really couldn’t comprehend the story he told me about, “Grabbing a Japanese officer by the belt and literally pulling the belt with the sword, through his body.”  No one wrote and there weren’t movies that depicted how brutal combat really was.  I’d read about those places in school and seen movies about them, but nothing like the story Uncle Lawrence told me matched any of that.  It took me a long time to understand the life Uncle Lawrence led and why he was the way he was, but I do now. We moved on to another stepdad, and I lost track of him.  I heard his liver finally quit, and he died at age 55. 

Two was how Marines stick together- once a Marine, always a Marine.  The impact of this story, to me, was not that he was a Medal of Honor winner. It was that they were all Marines and willing to stand together and help each other, anywhere, anytime, because of a shared experience that others couldn’t understand.  You aren’t less because you weren’t a Marine, but Marines carry themselves to their own standard.

I think current and former members of the 75th are the same.  We are not as large as the USMC, but we live by a Creed that unites us. What we need is a system that allows us to find and help each other, and that’s the Ranger for Life program, however you want to define it.  I define it as Ranger helping Rangers.   It’s not an organization. Nobody is in charge. No donations are required to be a member.   We don’t want to go to former Rangers’ funerals that died when they were 55.   That’s what this Ranger for Life program is.  Let’s get “left of boom.”  It’s maybe not so much about staying in touch, as realizing that there are Ranger brothers out there, always.  We all have issues, and none of them are unique. Like any Ranger mission, we can get through it together. 

RLTW!

Mike Hall