It was his tweed cap that I noticed when he saddled up beside me. I was seated at a table inside Roundabout Books as part of an autograph day for local authors. I recognized the fabric of the cap. I’d seen a man wearing a similar green tweed jacket in Alabama a month ago. When I remarked on how fancy that man’s suit coat was, he told me he’d bought it during one of his many visits to Ireland.

“Did you pick that cap up in Ireland?” I asked.

“I did,” he said smiling. An imposing figure standing, the fella carried a walking cane, a very necessary item on icy days like all of our days have been as of late. “My name’s Frank Graham,” he said extending his hand. I shook it and replied, “Frank is my brother’s name so I’ll remember it.”

“Not many of us around anymore.”

“No, not many.” I offered my name and then turned to introduce Tim, who was about to leave for a basketball engagement.

A very stately woman approached and asked, “Is my husband bothering you?” She put her hand gently o Frank’s shoulder. I recognized her right away as Anne Graham, author Tall Anne: A life in two genders.

“No not at all,” I replied. Then I reminded Anne Graham of the women’s coffee klatch where she and I had met before. Turning back to Frank, I told him that Tim and I had just been in Ireland. We spoke a bit about that and then he asked about the Appalachian Trilogy I’d written. I explained how it was my work with veterans that inspired the story arc focusing on how community can help heal a person struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. “These are fictional characters having real experiences in real places,” I added. “Christian Bend is a place in East Tennessee where I spent much of the summer after my father was killed in Vietnam.”

“What year was that?” Frank asked.

“1966.”

‘I was there with the 2nd Cav in 1969,” he said. “Your dad was there really early on.”

“Yes,” I said. “I wrote a book about all that, a memoir. I went to Vietnam in 2004.”

“You did? What’s the name of your memoir?” He glanced around the table of books searching for a copy.

“I don’t have a copy here but it’s After the Flag has been Folded.” Like a lot of people do whenever I tell them the title of my memoir, Frank winced.

“Who’d your dad serve with?”

“The 25th Infantry. He was Chief of Smoke,” I said, reflecting back to the headline in the Rogersville Review announcing the death of my father,a local Hawkins County boy. Frank and I talked some more about Ireland, my time in Scotland, his time in Scotland, then about where we grew up.

“I grew up in Georgia,” I said.

“Where?” he asked.

“Fort Benning area,” I replied. “Now Fort Moore.”

“No way!” he exclaimed. “I lived in Baker Village.”

“You’re kidding!” I replied. “Really?”

“Yes, my father was in the infantry. We were stationed there a couple of different times. I went to Edgewood then Clubview.”

“I started school at Edgewood!”

Frank and I carried on this way for a good bit, swapping stories about life in the military, in Columbus, and Fort Bragg, where he and I both had also lived at different points in our lives. Frank hasn’t been back for a good while but I return to Columbus often. “You wouldn’t recognize the place now,” I said. “They took out the old Swift Mills, turned the Chatthoochee into a rafting spot. There’s terrific eateries and music, theater, and lot of art.”

When I was in high school it wasn’t considered safe to walk downtown due to all the racial strife, and the proximity to Phenix City which, as Frank so rightly recalled, was a hotbed of thug activity. Soldiers were forbidden from crossing the river into Alabama due to the illicit activity that went on. We both recalled how it was considered home to the Dixie Mafia.

“Columbus is like Bend today,” I said. “You’d love it.”

“I never expected to meet anyone here who’d grown up there,” Frank said.

“Me neither. It’s wild. This is what I call poetry,” I said.

I should probably be used to moments like these, but I never cease to marvel over what I call God’s poetry. Frank and I could have passed the afternoon never acknowledging one another. We could have said “Hello” and nothing more. But because we took the chance to speak to one another about our fondness for Ireland and Scotland, we discovered how our lives had crossed in ways we never knew or expected.

When my friend Gordon Wofford, also a Vietnam veteran was around, I used to tell him that I couldn’t go anywhere without running into a Vietnam veteran. I referred to them as “The Veteran Mafia” but in a lighthearted way because like Gordon, there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do for me. All the men who served with my father have passed away now, as has Gordon, but my affinity for them remains. These men and women have taught me so much over the years. With the exception of those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6th, and gave their undying devotion to Trump, I hold the community of Vietnam vets with deepest gratitude.

I came home from that event having made a new friend of a Vietnam veteran from my old hometown…and his. I love days like these.