Rosemary took the yellowed letter out of the old shoebox, the one I told her never to open in front of anybody, and she said, Gary, since you asked what Frank did over there, I think your father would want you to hear this. Garys own last name was typed across the top.
The letter was from Garys father, written in 1972, to the United States Army. It was a letter of gratitude. Garys father had served too, in an earlier war, and when his unit got word of what happened in a firefight in 1971, he wrote to thank the young soldier who carried three wounded men out under fire and went back for a fourth.
That soldier was me. I never talked about it. Not at the VFW, not at home, not once in forty-six years. I came back in 1972 to no parade, worked the railroad for thirty-five years, and kept the whole thing in a shoebox on the top shelf of the closet.
Gary asked if I peeled potatoes over there. His own father wrote a letter thanking me for carrying four men out of a place Gary will never understand.
Rosemary read it to the whole cookout as the fireworks started down by the river. Garys father, who passed years ago, had known what I did before Gary was old enough to wear a flag shirt and mock a man who actually served.
Gary, who owns a chain of mattress stores, set down his beer. He did not know his own father had written that letter. Rosemary had kept it all these years, because Garys father gave it to her, quietly, and asked her to hold it until the day it was needed.
That day was the Fourth of July, by the grill, when a man in a flag shirt pushed one joke too far.
I did not want the letter read. But I will not pretend it did not matter, hearing Garys own fathers words after forty-six years of silence. Gary shook my hand before he left. A real handshake. It took a letter from his dead father to teach him what thank you for your service actually means.