Veterans Week, Part II: Adam's Table

We got into Nashville late yesterday and checked into our motel, exhausted. The rush hour traffic from BNA was swollen by folks arriving for the Country Music Awards this weekend and slowed by the unaccustomed total darkness at 5:30 p.m.; on this easternmost edge of the Central Time Zone, darkness falls fast and early when Daylight Savings Time ends. We were weary, aching from sitting all day in cars, airports, and planes (oh, the wacky routes we fly to save a dime!), and starving. We settled for the chain restaurant within walking distance of our motel.

Our handsome young waiter, with the fast-talking, Yankee ways, was unexpected in this most Southern of southern towns. And much too much for a couple of fagged out seniors. Mr. Razzle-dazzle, high energy, hard sell. I hate that even when I'm at my best. He was Adam and he would be HELPING US OUT!  He moved like Tony Manero headed onto the dance floor on Saturday night. I wondered if he was hopped up on something or just manic.

Of course, we should know that the bottle was a better deal than the glass and the premium wines were so far superior to the cheap ones that he hated to even discuss them with us. We could do this or that or some other unintelligible thing...But, hey, it was obvious that the choice was hard. He'd make it easy for me; let's start with White or Red!  I quietly and wryly told him we'd start with the crappy Blackstone Pinot Grigio, for me only, thanks...and clamped my mouth in a way that spelled STFU, Adam.

And he did, briefly. He brought the wine and tea and water with barely a beat in his step and left us alone for a few minutes. We hardly noticed how much time had passed, because we were past tired and into punchy. I think we jointly analyzed America's entire problem, and from a unique perspective--which I can no longer remember, but it was sublime.

And then Adam was back, empty-handed. He squatted and rested his elbows on the edge of our table in a way that said, "Now that we've become so close...," and informed us that he 'd screwed up with our order, had failed to push some button or something and our food would be up as soon as humanly possible and he was abjectly sorry. And, somehow, he mentioned a son. And that lots of regular "guests" asked for him when they came in. He offered us free salads and slipped away.

DH was waxing a tad sarcastic by this time, mugging to me, comically annoyed and impatient, blood sugar bottoming out. I was laughing at him, promising that I would personally ask for Adam each and every time we returned to his restaurant and we WOULD return, since it was right next to our motel. And the food came. It was surprisingly good. We felt much better. And Adam refilled DH's tea glass after each sip.

When we were ready for our check and feeling so much more human, thank you, and the place was clearing out for the night, Adam settled in for some serious talk. He asked where we were from, heard our standard answer, "We're from the Air Force, originally." Adam said he'd once had no respect for the Air Force, buncha pampered wusses, but he'd changed his mind. And then the story that Adam had been waiting all day to tell--the story that, we sensed, so often inserted itself into his days--came tumbling out.

Adam wasn't used to Tennessee. He was an Ohio boy and was only here for a few months to take care of his mother. The girls in the South were hell-bent on getting married from Date Number One and it was freaking him out. He'd taken the wait job just until the end of the month, and then he had to head back home. He had a young son, but was never married. He'd been in Afghanistan and, after 9-11, in Iraq as part of the 10th Mountain Division.

His group was IED'd in Fallujah and combat disabled, having lost at least two-thirds of their number. They were under ambush attack and he was hit twice, one in the chest that his body armor stopped and one upward from his armpit through the shoulder. He found himself trying for the first time to call in an air attack. He asked an A-10 Warthog to drop ordinance within 300 yards of his position, a range the Warthog questioned. When he got agreement and the Mark-82 was dropped, the concussion blew him backwards. The Warthog circled back to use its Gatling gun to pick off the one machine-gun mounted Toyota pick-up that almost got away. Warthog pilots saved his life.

We shook his hand and thanked him for his service. We honor the warriors despite condemning the war. And we'll be asking for Adam's table.