Some stories you just can't tell.

by Heidi Horchler
Yesterday I was in the grocery store and a man came buzzing down my aisle in one of the store-provided electric scooter carts. He had a friendly face and I smiled a greeting at him. The cap he wore had insignia showing that he had served in the military. As he passed me and stopped to look at the greeting cards, I noticed the back of the cap read "WORLD WAR II."

Ever since we started this blog, I've been trying to break the ice with Seniors I meet, to see if they'd be interested in sharing a little slice of their lives with us.

"I see you're a veteran," I said.

"Oh, yeah," he replied, "WWII."

He told me he was 93 years old.

I said I'd bet he'd have a lot of stories to tell. 

He paused and nodded, "We were there on Omaha beach, not D-Day, but a couple days after. We couldn't be there on that day because we were a tank unit and needed more time to get on land."

"Wow," was all I could say. I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone who'd experienced that battle firsthand. 

"I lost a lot of good friends that day," he continued, "that's why I wear this hat," and he reached up, touching the brim of his cap.

At this, he started to get choked up. His eyes watered for a second, then he composed himself.

67 years ago, he lost friends in one of the most intense battles in our nation's history. And by the look on his face; remembers it like it was yesterday.

I wish I could have talked to him more, gotten his name, asked him about his kids or his wife or where he grew up. But I didn't have the heart.

At that moment, he wasn't in a grocery store, in a 93-year-old body, confined to an electric scooter. He wasn't looking at greeting cards and talking to a young lady in the magazine aisle.

He was on Omaha beach with his buddies.