Like many veterans of the ’50s and ’60s, I hid that status for nearly 50 years until one of my granddaughters asked me to attend an assembly at her grade school to honor veterans. The response at that assembly was so different than anything I’d experienced that I slowly began to leave my “closet” of self-imposed secrecy. That was nearly 10 years ago. I’m now a life member, director, and membership chairman of the Richard L. Quatier Memorial Chapter #321 of the Korean War Veterans Association.
This past February, my wife and I attended a basketball game in Battle Ground, in which one of our grandsons was competing. Later we ate at a Battle Ground restaurant. A gentleman there shook my hand and said, “Thank you for your service, sir!” I recognized his and his son’s T-shirts as being on my grandson’s opposing team. When I went to pay, the gentleman at the register said, “Oh, your check is all paid.” When I found my voice, I asked who had paid it. “That big guy in the blue T-shirt.” I was speechless. I want our community to know that this can still happen. It affected me deeply because it was the first time it had ever been extended to me. Thank you, sir!Bobby D. Worden
LA CENTER
