“Hey, Grandma,” he called across the hall. “What rank did you hold when dinosaurs roamed the earth?”
His two friends laughed.
I kept eating, because I’d driven a long way and the chili was warm.
He demanded my ID, told me to stand, performed his little authority for the room — and then his eyes landed on the small brass pin at my collar, a blue shield and a white heron, enamel chipped, metal dark with age.
“That’s my battalion’s emblem,” he said. “Take it off. That emblem doesn’t belong to someone who hasn’t earned it.”
I set down my spoon and looked at him.
“Be careful about deciding what another person has earned.”
He didn’t hear it. They never do, at that age, until they’re made to.
So I asked him how long he’d been with the battalion.
Three years, he said.
Three years of walking under the big blue letters above the serving counter, and the smaller dedication beneath them, without once stopping to read the words.
