I went to Faegan’s Café & Pub for a beer tour last Tuesday and met a former U.S. infantryman who got “blown up” in Iraq. These were his words, not mine.

This meeting got me thinking. We pay a lot of lip service to our veterans – the NFL invites some to be on television at the Super Bowl, Walmart makes commercials trumpeting their support of veterans through employment. There’s a lot of PR stuff there, to be sure. But how often to we take a moment to think about and appreciate what those in the armed forces do for us?

I’m talking about a real, honest to God moment, not a “Look at me, look how patriotic and conscientious I am” festival of self-aggrandizement.

I had one of those real moments last Tuesday. While standing at the bar, waiting to get my drink, the veteran turned to me and started talking. I was a little taken aback by this, as people don’t strike up conversations with strangers anymore.

He was wearing an Oakland A’s cap and sunglasses indoors at 10 at night. He introduced himself to me and asked me if I knew any place nearby where he could get something to eat.

I suspect it was an excuse to talk to somebody, because my new soldier friend then explained he had just moved to Syracuse to receive treatment at the local VA Medical Center, and didn’t really know anyone around here.

During his first tour in Iraq, this veteran suffered a massive brain injury in an explosion, and is now classified as 100 percent disabled. His sunglasses weren’t an attempt to be like Flo Rida in the club – his war wounds left him legally blind. Because he can no longer drive himself, he’s forced to take cabs everywhere. Syracuse in the winter months isn’t exactly conducive to pedestrian traffic.

We talked for about 15 minutes about everything from his difficult Syracuse move, to the terrible weather, to the Orange basketball team. After a while, I had to leave him to rejoin my friends. Before I walked away, I thanked him for his service and he shrugged it off pretty quickly. He felt it was part of what he signed up for.

I realized that night he wasn’t looking for a parade, medal or standing ovation at the Super Bowl before an audience of millions. He just wanted a friend, if only for a few minutes. Somebody to shoot the breeze with.

It’s been almost a week and I can’t stop thinking about this guy, about his courage and sacrifice defending a country that sometimes does stupid things like make Kim Kardashian a famous person, or create a conspiracy theory that the president wasn’t born in the United States.

It takes a pretty impressive person to fight for our values, in spite of how we take these values for granted sometimes.

There’s a lot we need to do in the future when it comes to making sure we care for our veterans, giving them the proper medical and psychiatric attention and repaying, to the best of our ability, a debt to them that can never be truly repaid.

After a week of mulling over my conversation last Tuesday, I haven’t come up with much great insight, I guess. All I know is this:

We have it really good, and it’s because of guys like him. Thanks, man. If I run into you at Faegan’s again, I owe you a beer.

Kevin Slack is a senior television, radio and film major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at khslack@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @kevinhslack.

Published on February 12, 2013 at 2:30 am