Friday, November 04, 2005

It's the little things

I wasn't able to take my usual route to work this morning because of construction, so I took a detour through the local community college (aka 13th grade). As I was waiting to make the left into the parking lot I saw that the license plate on the car in front of me read "ANTIWAR". Well, I hadn't been on the CC set-up group lately, so I was jonesin' for a chance to be friendly. I figured this driver was as good as any.

As luck would have it the driver, a young lady, stayed in front of me for a minute or two before pulling in to park. I rode up next to her (I'm a motorcycle rider) and said, in my friendliest voice.
"Hey, are you from Antiw, AR too?!". I pronounced it An-tee-wah.
She looks at me kinda confused and says "no, I'm from here."
"Oh, I'm sorry, it's just your license plate says Antiw, AR so I kinda figured."
"No, it says Antiwar. I'm against the war."
"I see now. You know, I never noticed that about Antiw. I guess it kinda makes sense though," she looks at me quizzically. "Our high school's mascot was the Running Chicken."

It takes her a second to get on track with what I said, and when she does she didn't take it well. I got to spend a couple minutes having it explained to me how horrible Bush was, how it's just a war for oil, and that the rest of the world hates America. I responded with my usual response to such a tirade. I thanked her for her time, said she was entitled to her opinion, and I offered her an Army of One pencil.

It wasn't my shiningest moment, and I wasn't terribly proud to have done it. For whatever reason seeing the license plate, at a moment I was frustrated by my delay due to the construction, made me go out of my way. It wasn't all in vain though. As the woman was walking off to class a guy walked up to me. We have a semi-large population of Sudanese refugees in our area. This gentleman was one of them. He'd heard me talking with the lady, and heard her comment about the world hating America. He had to tell me he didn't agree. He and his friends and family who made it to the US loved it here. They'd been welcomed with open arms. He also wanted my card and gave me his info. He's applied for his 551 and once he gets it he plans to enlist so he can give back.

It made me smile behind my helmet.

FSR2S training to done for me, and the rest of the office will finish it up tomorrow. I've got a couple applicants in mind who I'll be using it with to secure their commitment. Oh, and I a guy on the floor yesterday. DQ for hearing. He's dead in the water. 42 years old (17 years PS) and works with road-paving equipment. Oh well. He's wicked pro-Army and a community leader in his small town. I think they call that a COI.

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