You just never know whom you'll meet next.

So here's what happened at my house last night. Harris came home from New Braunfels and said one of his Army buddies was in San Antonio for 2 months of training and he was coming to our house to have a beer with Harris. No big deal. When Menashe arrived, Harris introduced him to Hollis and then to me and I hugged him. I've had the pleasure of meeting a few of Harris' Army buddies and I like to hug them when I meet them. If they are important to Harris, they are important to me. No big deal. In the course of conversation over the next half hour or so, I was trying to connect Menashe to the other guys I had met so I was asking if he knew this or the other guy and Harris said "Menashe was in Iraq with me in the 1/64." Then he turned to Menashe and asked "Were you on duty the day I got blown up?" and this young man in my living room said "Yeah dude, I pulled you out." Ever so casually he said this. Like "Yeah, I had a burger for dinner tonight." Only it was a very big deal. I was completely floored. When I wrote my essay about Harris earlier this week, I sort of got into memory mode. I don't go there often but I've been hanging out in the memory of that part of my life a little more vividly this week and now all of a sudden here is one of the angel heroes who came to Harris' rescue when he got hurt. WOW! I asked a couple of questions about the whole event. Menashe was not terribly interested in discussing it. I totally respect that and did my best to shut off the interrogator in me which is not easy to do. I really just wanted to stare at him. I never, ever thought I'd get to meet the person who pulled Harris out of the exploded Husky. Will he ever understand the depth of my gratitude? Maybe - he has a 6 month old son himself (who incidentally is named after Alun, Harris' best friend that was killed when they had been in Iraq less than 90 days). Will he suffer for years with the memory of Alun's death and Harris' injury? I really hope not. He's just a guy from Brooklyn, New York who joined the Army and befriended my son and then pulled him unconscious from a big vehicle that had just been blown up. He was in my living room! Isn't that just amazing?