I am at the Denver Airport, waiting for a flight for several hours. I saw my first cowboy hat before I even went through immigration control. There was a long line, and the foreigners went through faster than the Americans. One immigration official was joking with all the tourists (I guess immigration doesn't worry too much about flights from Germany, where I had to go through two separate security checks before the flight). He asked everyone if they had brought $10,000 in cash into the country. They usually just burst out laughing at the idea.
The line wound through as many turns as a Disneyland ride. There was a bunch of Mormon "elders" coming home from their mission in Norway, still wearing their little tags, probably on their way back to Salt Lake City; one of them, more enterprising than the others, tried to convert the man ahead of him in the queue.
"The most joyful thing for me on my mission has been just seeing the improvement in people's lives when they open their eyes to the gospel." The man he was talking to, about thirty and dressed all in black, seemed interested, to my surprise, and didn't turn away.
"Are you back from Disneyland?" The two men right behind me in line struck up a conversation. 
The first one was an almost-crew-cut white guy in his late 20s, very tough-looking. The second was an older black man who was wearing dogtags.
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah. I'm in the south."
"I'm in the Green Zone. I am so ready for this leave. My 18 months are almost up."
"I have 25 more days."
I realized they were talking about Iraq.
"Has it been rough up there?"
"Oh man. We had an ambush last week."
"That's rough."
"Yeah."
His eyes looked evenly into mine as I turned around to listen. He didn't smile. He wanted me to listen. You got the feeling he wanted everyone to listen.
I'm sure he could have said even more. I can only imagine what stories he could tell.
Posted by: Pumpkin Pie | 03 March 2006 at 11:02
Great post. I love the contrast of the mormon and the soldiers as you tell it in this story.
Posted by: misschrisc | 07 March 2006 at 14:15