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Jordon

Jordon Stanford


Last Updated: 11/23/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 26
Sign: Virgo

City: SAN MARCOS
State: TEXAS
Country: US
Signup Date: 8/26/2006
Monday, April 30, 2007 

Current mood:  contemplative
Category: Religion and Philosophy
    Working register at Nike today I didn't really expect to meet anyone special.  Lines and lines of people come and go.   Grateful and ungrateful, they mainly blend together.  Then a man came up to my register who needed to exchange some socks.  At a glance I figured him to be military. He had the confidence and build of a career soldier, a close cropped hair cut, and a black wrist band on which I could just make out some listed names.  He also leaned on a cane, something he was much too young and fit to otherwise be carrying.  I sensed the oddest mixture of joy and sadness about him.  Looking at him, I could see the physical pain as well as the pain of losing close friends in sudden deaths.  I could also see the joy of having fought with men that he loved and respected.  I could not see an ounce of self-pity.  I asked him if he was in the Infantry and he said that he had spent the beginning of his career there, but after that, most of it in the Special Forces as a communications officer. I asked him about whether or not he planned to go back into the fight.  He said that he wanted to and that he could still shoot straight.  He thanked both my manager and I, beaming at us, shaking our hands, and then walked away.
    So often, I think later of the things I could have and should have said.  I realized that I wanted to thank him for what he is and what he did. Not because he was "preserving our freedoms" or some such nonsense, but because he seemed like the kind of guy who would do anything for a fellow soldier or someone in harm's way.  He felt like such a pure spirit, someone who was capable of being deadly one instant and tender in the next.  Someone who was completely capable and could do anything he set his mind to.  I wish that I could have set down with him and found out about the friends he had lost, how he fought, and what he's experienced and learned as part of one of the most elite groups of soldiers in the world.  I wish that I could have learned from him some of what it really means to be a man.   I know it seems silly to have felt so much about such a short meeting, but sometimes I come across people and something inside of them speaks to me.  I feel their essence and it makes me want to take on parts of their character as my own.  People like this are rare, but I never forget them.
1:23 AM
 
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