Many Amtrak conductors and other rail workers are veterans. Over the past quarter century of commuting to Philadelphia on Amtrak, I got to know many veterans. The most recent is a conductor named Darrell I have only got to know in the past year. I still go to Philadelphia every week.
Darrell is a conductor on the 9:33am train. That train always runs to Philadelphia with the engine in the back of the train and the cab car up front. Until recently, Darrell’s crew did not let passengers use the cab car, leaving it for crew with nearly empty trains. But Darrell let me ride in the cab car knowing I was a long-time rider.
A couple of weeks ago, Darrell and I talked about being in the Army.
He asked me about my backpack, surprised I would have gear from a recent war. I told him I deployed to Iraq in 2009-10.
We got into a long conversation about how I got back in and deployed at 56 years old. Darrell served four years from 1988-92. He served in Germany for right at the end of the Cold War and during the Gulf War sending supplies to Kuwait and Iraq. He said it was the best four years of his life.
Then we talked about friends from Cold War service.
I told him I was going to Europe to visit my roommate from the late 70s in Cold War Germany. Darrell is meeting some of his friends from the Army later this summer. Darrell said he got out, had kids and didn’t think he could ever go back in. He is more than a decade younger than I am and was thinking if I could do it, he could have.
The Army returned the enlistment age to the traditional 35 years in 2009, so the window has closed on older soldiers returning to service.
Now Darrell and I are two old soldiers riding the train who can say with the crew of "Fury" that being a soldiers was "The best job I ever had."
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