I was told that joining the army was a good thing. That serving . country was a high honor. But ever since I joined back in 1968, my whole career with the military has been defined by four words. Hurry up and wait.

I volunteered and almost immediately tension rose and I was sent to Vietnam. I think that was the only fast part of my career. They want boots on the ground. But when it came to the combat part we were told to wait for the guerillas to come to us. Sit back in our foxholes and wait. Hurry up and wait. For the country that is all.

Now as I sit and wait in the waiting room of the Veterans Hospital I am told, once again, hurry up and wait. I have been waiting for three hours with a hemorrhoid so I can’t even sit down properly. But like a good soldier I keep my mouth shut and I hurry up and wait…

Another few minutes pass and I notice a young man walk in and sit next to me. Lucky punk. Iraqi Freedom is on his hat, a young veteran, a bit overweight, so I guess he is just recently retired. He waited ten minutes before going up to the secretary’s desk and demanding to see the doctor. That he was going to raise all sorts of hell if he didn’t get seen. The secretary directed him back to the chairs and told him to wait like everyone else. He came back to his chair and immediately pulled out his cell phone. He called someone, someone important it seems because not five minutes later he got called to the back. He jumped the whole line, course the line hadn’t moved for three plus hours, but still shouldn’t he have waited for my turn at least, so that I could rest my legs? 

He came back thirty minutes later and it was as if the dam had broken and the flood of patients in the waiting room were seen very quickly. Men that were older than me but had been here longer than me were all seen to. The crowd thinned and dissipated very quickly. My problem was treated and I left satisfied. I had never know that hospital to move so quickly. And I have never waited there since.

Whoever that man called put the fire of God under those doctors like a fresh batch of trainees. God bless him and all veterans like him that still know how to get things done.