The Old Man and the Angel – A Parable

“Where you headed, Son?” asked the man with the cane.

He sat in an airport coffee shop, a cup of black coffee in front of him. like him. I was killing time while waiting for my flight to leave.

The one who told the story to me sighed. To keep his privacy, I’ll call him Bob.

“I’ll be headed back to Iraq,” Bob answered.

“You in the Army?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Thought so,” the old man said.

“How’d you know?” Bob asked. He wasn’t in uniform.

“I got a nose for my own kind.”

Bob studied him carefully. What hair he could see was white, poking out in tufts from under the hat proclaming the man a Korean War veteran. His skin was almost translucent, and even sitting, he used the cane for support.

“Mind if I join you?” Bob asked.

“Please do,” he said, nodding at the the empty chair across from him.

Bob sat down. He was drinking an iced coffee, while the man drank his coffee hot and black. Somehow, that seemed to illustrate the divide between them. Bob thought he’d have little in common with the Old Man.

“Where you headed?” Bob asked.

“Off to see grandkids in Washington state. I imagine it will be a lot more fun than where you’re headed.”

“That’s true.” Bob took a sip of his coffee. “This is my third time.”

The man looked out the window. Outside the sun was bright and airplanes moved slowly past, the whine of their engines barely audible through the thick glass.

“Facing giants once again,” the Old Man said.

“Excuse me?”

“Line from a song. I’ve been where you are,” the man told Bob.

“Oh?”

“I was in a train station,” he said. “Waiting to catch a train back to Ft. Riley, and had to change trains in this little town in the middle of Kentucky. I was eating a Hershey bar and drinking a soda and I was scared to death. You see, I was an infantryman and that meant the front lines. Since the Big Red One was in Europe, I’d be facing Hitler and his boys.

“I was thinking about all this when this man came in. He was dressed in overalls and sat down on the bench across from me. I think he was a local farmer.

“I was in uniform and he says, ‘Where you going, soldier?’

“‘Fort Riley, Kansas,’ I answered, both proud and scared at the same time.

“He sat quietly for a moment before asking, ‘You going to Germany?’

“I remember I shrugged.”

Bob let the Old Man just talk. Clearly the old brain was going down pathways of yesterday. He admitted, he was beginning to regret sitting down.

A minute later, he was glad he had.

The Old Man reached into his pocket and pulled out a chain. A small silver medal dangled on the end of it.

“Anyways, the Farmer says, ‘I’ve been praying for someone to give this to.’ He handed it over to me.

“I took it and looked at it. ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

“‘St. Michael, the Archangel medal. He’s the patron saint of soldiers.’

“‘I’m not Catholic,’ I told him.

“I remember he shook his head. ‘Neither am I, but my Grandfather was. He fought in the wars across the West, and a Mexican woman who used to work around the fort gave that to him. She told him that it was reminder that someone he didn’t know would pray for his safety.’

“‘It must have worked, because he went through some harrowing times and came out alive. He gave it to me when I left for France during the Great War. When I got back, I thought I’d lost it, but I found it the other day. I felt I needed to come down here today and give it to the first soldier I saw and tell him I’d be praying for him.'”

Bob said the old man stopped, and then looked the medal over. It looked like it had been through a lot. It was pitted and worn and you could barely see St. Michael, his wings spread and a sword in his hand on it.

“‘His prayers must have been really powerful,” the Old Man said. “I carried this medal from Normandy, through Korea and ‘Nam. And I needed his prayers. I was surrounded by a lot of hate, from the enemy, and when I came home from ‘Nam, my own countrymen. I was told I was a baby killer and eyed by those around me like I might suddenly just fly off the handle and go berserk. Only once was I ever treated like a hero, and then everyone tried to forget what I’d done.'”

“He handed me the medal,” Bob said. I told him, “I can’t take this.”

“‘Yes, you can. It’s my turn to pass it on to someone who will need to be reminded that he is being prayed for. You’re not alone facing the giants, Son. Not this time,’ he said. He finished his coffee, got up and hobbled away on the cane.

“To this day, I don’t know who he was. He’s probably dead now, but I know he prayed for me.

“How else could I be telling you this.”