The colonel would be happy

#Middlebury #Veterans

“I’m astonished,” Sarge said when we met outside the coffee shop back door. “All on their own they set up a schedule for bathroom cleaning, cooking dinner, doing dishes, shower times. They worked it out themselves,” he said, obviously proud of the formerly homeless veterans who’d moved in upstairs. “Come look at this.”

I trailed him up the narrow staircase to the attic dormitory. “Look how they keep it. Pristine.”

And it was. Beds made, pillows fluffed, not a thing out of place. Since I’d been up there last, Sarge had brought in a couch, two recliners, and a 35-inch television.

“Computer and internet’s next,” he said. “One guy’s ready to start remote college classes. I found out he was only six credits away from an accounting degree before he went homeless. The VA screwed up his payments, he lost his apartment and his wife, and it was downhill from there.”

I asked Sarge how he was able to pay for all this, finishing and furnishing the attic, feeding four hungry guys and only charging them $10 a week rent. He’d gotten an inheritance years ago when his father died, he said. The money had been sitting in the bank.

Sarge went quiet for long minutes and then he said, “My father was a colonel during one of our ugly wars. Every Thursday night when I was growing up, he wasn’t at dinner with us. He’d come home, jump into civvies, and dash to the VA hospital to help with … whatever. Change bed pans, play chess, feed the ones who couldn’t hold a fork, write letters home, help guys figure out how to get up off the floor while they learned how to walk on their new legs, talk to the ones who woke up screaming … whatever. The veterans never knew he was a full bird colonel.”

Sarge looked around the dormitory. “The colonel,” he said with a small smile, “would be happy about this.”

© 2021 King Features Synd. Inc.