Stop Loss - this wasn't a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. But as a veteran who had heard stories and been close to people who have lost someone it was hard to take, so the story caught me probably more than the movie did.
As the end came near, I was reminded of these stories I'd heard from people who had either killed after being stop-lossed or killed in combat. Tears were falling slowly as I sat in the second to last row of the theater.
I was wiping my eyes, first a little, and then a lot. All of a sudden, a hand clasped my shoulder and said, "Let it out, son," and I lost it - full-on cryfest. I was loud, tears pouring and it really didn't matter because the credits we're rolling and everyone was leaving.
It turns out, this old White guy was an old Korean war veteran. We stood, hugged and we both cried real tears in the isle.
We separated, wiped our tears. Sat and swapped military stories in the theater until the next showing came on. He introduced me to his wife and we went our own way.
It was strange because it was so... You don't just touch anybody at the movie theater, even if they're crying. But at that moment, from one veteran to another it was, "I'm here for you, brother."
***
True stories I was told while deployed in Kuwait I was in Navy customs.
I was speaking with a Master Sergeant, a brother about 40 years old. We were walking around the staging yard where battalions were kept after we had already checked their bags.
I asked him how much longer he had in the army and he told me he had been stopped lost and that he should have been gone last year. He was glad he was going home and he hoped the Army would finally let him retire, and that his friend wasn't as lucky
He went on to tell me that his friend and given the Army 23 years of his life and put in his papers to retire so he could see and spend time with his family for the first time in forever and was told that he was stop-lossed, which means the military doesn't have enough people and they can keep you for as long as they need to even passed the day when you're supposed to get out.
Two weeks later that man was deployed, and two weeks after that the vehicle he was in hit an IED and he was killed.
As the Master Sergeant told the story I could see the anger growing in his eyes, the frustration and bitterness. He said that he'd hoped to pay his respects to that man's Widow when he got back. The two I join the Army together in 1983 and have been closed their entire careers