Vietnam: Busking with a Vet

The Vietnam War tore this country apart.  Not to mention the horror and tragedy the people of Vietnam suffered.  Our involvement in the war shaped my teen and young adult years and changed my life.  Lately I've been able to learn more about what the people of Vietnam endured, as we have come to know many Vietnamese immigrants...boat people...who have embraced us and shared their community with us in Philadelphia.  I have talked with many men and women whose families were torn apart, who spent years wandering from country to country, looking for a safe haven, before ending up to start a new life in Philadelphia.  We have been immersed in their culture...food, dance, religion, language, music.  They have been very warm and forgiving. 
The Vietnamese people have very big hearts.  They are very strong and generous people.
The other day I was playing music in Suburban Station.  A heavy-set African-American man walked up to me, smiling with very few teeth.  He was wearing a Vietnam Veterans cap.  There was a twinkle in his eye, but he looked as if he had fallen on some hard luck in his life.  He smiled, as I sang, and at the end of my song, I paused, giving him an opening.  He asked about my guitar.  I told him it had been my father's and it was a Harmony Sovereign.  They don't make them any more, he said.  Yes, and we talked about how great the sound was, a perfect full sound for the train station corridors and the acoustics in the corridors there.  He asked me if he could play my guitar, and decided, this man had a song to share, so I handed him my baby.  He started riffing on a rough blues lick, singing with a gravely voice.  It doesn't get much more real than this, I thought.  I let him play and play and play, as if he had been starving.  I watched him slip into a zone.  Finally he took a deep breath and stopped, smiled that toothless grin of his, and handed me back my guitar.
We talked about the music, how healing it was.  We talked about the war and how it had caused so much pain on both sides.  How music had brought him and me together to share this moment.  How a conscientious objector and a former soldier could be brought together and connect to heal after all these years.  A pain we had shared from two different sides of the conflict. 
We hugged before he left.  I watched him walk slowly down the corridor.  At the end he turned and waved.  And smiled.  That toothless smile of his, the warm twinkle in his eye....