Worth the Wait

It was sunny and in the upper 80s with a slight breeze as I stood in line this morning waiting to vote. The dream of popping in and marking my computerized ballot with the ease of the drive-thru at Chick-fil-A had vanished once I turned into the lot. There among the field of brightly colored campaign signs with snappy slogans was The Line . . . more than 400 early voters heal-to-toe around the building. With General Tommy Franks' book, American Soldier, under my arm, I took my place in line next to the dumpster. It was there that the neighborly conversations began. There was the casually dressed middle-aged mother of a kindergartener who joked about having such a young child at her age. Two elder black sisters were dressed as if on their way to church. One sister freely discussed her recent radiation treatment for cancer, while the other lovingly held an umbrella overhead to protect her from the sun. Senior voters outnumbered the younger ones ten-to-one today. It was inspiring to watch these gray-haired members of the Greatest Generation standing there in the unseasonable heat prepared to do their civic duty as they always had. Some stood tall, while others stooped with age. Many walked with the gait of someone much younger, while others used a walker or cane, or else leaned on a companion. It was during that 90-minutes of waiting that I read about Lt. Tommy Franks and his first weeks in Vietnam. From adjusting to the climate, the bugs and the military slang, to calling in his first artillery strike on the VC while under fire, Franks recounts how quickly he learned to see war on a soldier's level. The time passed quickly, and I cast my vote for the right man at the right time. But all politics aside, that 90-minutes shared with folks I had never met (and will probably never see again), and gaining a special insite on a war half-a-world and more than 35-years away made this a good day. It was certainly worth the wait.