Hug a 90 Year-Old

I work two very different jobs. In one job, I generally see one person a day, for about five minutes- either the person I'm relieving or the person that's relieving me. Maybe I'll talk to a tug boat on the radio ("… Okay, roger that. Have a nice day! Be careful out there. Talk to you tomorrow?") but that's about it. 

But my other job is the complete opposite. I get to meet people from all over the country and all over the world who are on vacation in a beautiful and fun city, and are about to experience it in a WWII amphibious vehicle.

Today I got to meet Bob, a 94 year-old veteran. I know I'll never have to live that long, but if I did, I could never be as cool as Bob. He and his hot young 75 year-old trophy wife were on their way to an Alaskan cruise and had time for a duck tour.

We spent a whole half hour going over everything from German U-boats off the Atlantic coast to Operation Fortitude- 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude

And this guy was THERE! He saw first hand all the propaganda (Loose Lips Sink Ships was a campaign to make civilians keep their mouths shut if they knew about all the U-boats totally controlling our Eastern seaboard) and he saw first-hand the fake invasion force that completely faked out Hitler and won the war. I could have talked to him for days. There is nothing better about this job than meeting people like Bob.

You know all those Keep Calm and Carry On posters you see? That was part of a British campaign that never happened. The idea was that if the Nazis actually occupied England, everybody was to be cool and not get themselves killed. Just wait it out. It never happened, of course, so the hundreds of thousands of posters never got used and were only discovered many years later. 

They're called the Greatest Generation for a reason. If not for them and what they did, we simply would not be here right now. All of them- the young boys on the front lines, the women in the factories, the businessmen who retooled and produced hundreds of thousands of vehicles, the people on the Homefront who sacrificed so our soldiers could eat, and the countless people who did whatever they could to support the young men who were thrust into a whole new Hell. 

Whenever I get to meet somebody in their nineties they know full well how much I appreciate them. I've had a great life and have been able to pretty much do whatever I've wanted to do. Because of them. 

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