Even Dignitaries Fart on Heads

Let me tell you a story about Pete Ewy. My sister and I were in Virginia after his heart surgery. One night we couldn't get back onto the base, so I asked the guard if we could call my brother. He asked who my brother was and his rank. I told him I was pretty sure he was a chief. "Chief?" he asked like it was a big deal. I told him, "Yah, I'm pretty sure, but he's just my brother so..." The guy got pretty motivated and took extra care to get Laura Ewy and me to our room. I told him my that brother used to sit on my head and fart so he wasn't a dignitary or anything. Still, this guy was undeterred in his service. That was weird, but it helped me appreciate the twenty or so years Pete had put into the military. I'd discovered just how big my brother was. Sure, he got out of that hospital and resumed his weight lifting and five-mile jogs, but he was larger than his physicality.

On a rainy night in Portsmouth my brother, laid out and hooked up to hospital machines, afforded me a the kind of accommodations most of us take for granted every day. It put into perspective the silent focus with which our parents watched those Tomahawks rocket off his first battleship. It made it clearer the respect that must be paid to those who don't know where they're going to end up for the next week, month or year. So, thank you, Pete. Now I have my own children who are comfortable and free to wreak havoc on one another, and it's in no small part due to you and countless others who dove headlong into a responsibility much greater than yourselves.