by T. Scott Randolph

Created on: May 02, 2010   Last Updated: May 28, 2010

You can never judge a book by it's cover. The saying has been around for a long time, and with good reason. Whoever first said it, hit the nail on the head. It is one of the few, completely true statements you will hear. While meeting a girlfriend's extended family during Christmas I had a conversation that changed several peoples lives forever.

For anyone that has gone to one of these joyous occasions, you are an outsider. You know the story. You get introduced to an impossible amount of people in a short amount of time. There is no way to possibly remember all the aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews (not to mention the dozen of so cousins that everyone seems to have). Before long, your date (since it is their family) more or less forgets that you are even there. She is too busy looking at the new baby that lives in Idaho. As it happens, this particular year, I found myself in the living room, sitting on the couch with her grandfather.

 
I happened to be wearing a Marine Corps shirt. The grandfather asked me if I had served in the military. Before I go on with this story, it is important for you to realize what I actually knew about this person at that point. He is a semi retired preacher at a Baptist church and knows that a guy with a lot of tattoos is dating his granddaughter.

I told him that I had served, as well as the years I spent in service. He asked (rather shyly) if I had seen combat. I told him that I had as well as in which countries I had fought. We started to talk about military tactics and warfare in general. While this was happening, neither of us happened to notice that both my girlfriend and her mother (his daughter) had come into the room

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As it will happen with soldiers, no matter what the generation, we were speaking a different language than the ladies knew about. He was telling me about human waves of attacking Chinese soldiers and the fact that they had to kill until the machine gun barrels would actually start to melt from the heat.He also told me about the problems they encountered with some of the officers being addicted to opium (many things stay the same, no matter what war you are talking about). We talked back and forth for several hours.

I think that we both gained new respect for the other. I was just as guilty as he was. I saw him as an older man that was a preacher. He saw me as a young punk with tattoos that was spending too much time with his baby granddaughter (who happened to be 25, but to parents and grandparents, you

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