March 19, 2011

• Roger’s Story

  ..I went to the train station on Friday during my lunch break.  I can sit and read in a comfy chair for an hour without having to buy anything, and nobody bothers me.  A man sat down across from me.  He was older and his hands were covered with band-aids.  I nodded a hello before returning to reading and texting Markus.  After a few minutes the old man asked me, in German, if I was using my phone as a German-English dictionary, because of how often I switched between the two.  I explained to him that I was reading texts from my boyfriend, and that I was an American – therefore reading English was no problem.  His faced brighten immediately, and he quickly switched to English to tell me his story…

   

  He remembers being a child in WWII.  At the end of the war, his father invited American soldiers into the house to eat.  And the soldiers were friendly and polite to the family.  German soldiers were there too, and they asked his father for civilian clothes so that they could go home as people rather than as soldiers. 

  A few weeks after the war, when his family (and most everyone that he knew) was starving, they started getting food packages from the Americans.  The same planes that had only a month before dropped bombs were now giving out food.  The kids all got something to eat in the schools, which meant a lot – they weren’t usually fed at home.  He insisted to me that he would not be alive today without that food.

  He was deeply touched.  As he sees it, the Americans won a war.  This war was started by the Germans, resulting in the Germans killing millions of people – including Americans.  And what did the Americans do to the German people, the “conquered people”?  They helped them.  They sent them food and helped them rebuild all that was destroyed.

  The older man paused here for a moment.  He painfully pulled out a hankerchief from his shirt pocket to wipe his eyes.  I could see his hands, those arthritis-twisted, bandaid-covered hands, shaking with the effort.

  He excused himself, saying he could not really put into words how he felt.  But, he insisted, American had done such things multiple times.  Americans have reached out and helped those who have tried to destroy them.  He began to cry openly as he told me how much he loves and appreciates my country.  He said it disgraces him that so many people have forgotten all the good America has done. 

  He went on to tell me about when he fulfilled his dream by going to America in ’66.  The people impressed him by how friendly they were.  They said hello to strangers and had no issue striking up a conversation.  He told me that he was torn when he was at the airport.  He was getting ready to board the plane for Germany, and be prayed God to send a sign.  Should he stay or return home?  Immediately a stewardess come and told him he was holding up the plane.  If he didn’t board right now, he would lose his money – and have to pay $6000 in delay charges while the plane unloaded his luggage.  He laughed and told me he quickly thanked God for his answer before boarding.

  He smiled at me and asked me some questions about myself.  I told him about the program I am in, about the internships I am doing, and about what I’d like to do in the future.  I told him about my German boyfriend, and how I plan to come back for him. 

  The old man looked to me and grinned.  His whole face was blotched with age, the skin sagging off his cheeks and over his eyes – but it was still a very friendly face.  He sad blue eyes, I could see.  Not gray-blue, rather the blue of my dad’s Air Force uniform.  He shook his head, still smiling.

  “Don’t be foolish,” he said.  “Go back to America, and take that lucky boy with you.”

  My lunch break was up.  We shook hands and departed.

  His name was Roger.

   

  • 6:28 pm
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