Definition of a Veteran

           A person who has had long experience in a particular field, esp. military service.....

A person who is long experienced or practiced in an activity or capacity.... I thought I would take this opportunity on Veterans Day to talk about an experience with a true veteran. He was very unassuming...short in stature, a rather kind, quirky old german man with a goatee and crooked teeth and a raspy voice.  His hair was always gray and ruffled..and clothes a bit disheveled in appearance.  He entered my life in tenth grad in Biology class to be exact.  You see our regular teacher hated teaching, he despised his students and loathed class each day.  After about 8 weeks of doing overhead slide after slide to teach he quit to go clean pools. Enter Paul Hahn.  He was a career substitute teacher.  I thought he was a rather odd bird.  We all tried to rattle him as best we could.  We would leave the pool cleaning hotline number for him and told him they were still hiring...hint.  There were animal heads across the top of the classroom...biology..remember?! We put a picture of his head on the next spot in line..caption "Mr. Hahn...Class of 1913."  He actually laughed deeply at that one..he would laugh at many of our jokes but still got to work to teaching us the material. One day he wasn't there.  A new substitute came in and didn't really care for me, specifically my outward countenance and facial expression.  In that one period he succeeded in telling me that "I would never amount to anything and that any student with my grades would never graduate college." I don't believe he was using reverse psychology..I think he never wanted to look beyond the facial expression and invest in knowing me. The next day I could not get the words out of my head and I was mulling it over...very hurt, more angry that I was judged by someone again without knowing me.  I entered Biology class and was Mr. Hahn.  He had me stay after class and wanted to know what was wrong.  I opened up and told him of the previous day's fiasco.  He grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes and said "of all the students in here Glenn, I believe in you.  You are going to graduate college and you are going to do great things in this world.  I believe in you....One step at a time...take the next step and line up your goals." Finally, someone was validating me without judging me...was this even possible that someone didn't feel threatened by my expressions and was willing to consider I have promise?   Whether or not he really believed it--I'll never know and it doesn't matter...it was what I needed to hear from a veteran of life.  He had life experience that I did not.  He knew I needed some encouragement.  It worked.  I brought my grades in that class from a D to an A.  I brought all of my classes up and became ranked in my class up to #141 of 1015.  I remember going to him to share my success.  He was not surprised, but he reminded me "there was more hard work and more successes ahead." Mr. Hahn encouraged me and that changed my life around.  How I wish others could have a mentor enter their life at the right time to help guide them into the right direction.  I worked hard at my night jobs and got my AA degree at the local community college.  I called him to get together and have lunch at TGI Fridays to celebrate.  I will never forget the proud look of approval on his face, no longer teacher and student but now mentor and friend who had seen part of what he saw in me now fulfilled. Mr. Hahn was a Veteran, a veteran of the German Air Force from WWII and came to our country immediately after the war and shared with me many stories of his life experiences, how he lost parts of his feet from freezing in a plane on a mission and came so close to death.  I listened to stories of prejudice against him in every way yet he never became bitter or allowed those experiences to define who he was.  There is so much more I would love to say about what I learned from him.....to honor his memory. In today's world I want to encourage others not to be too busy with your head down all of the time.  There are opportunities to speak into other's lives...more than you realize.  You never know who's life you could change.  For me-- I needed to hear the actual sentence "I believe in you."  For many others it is simply showing consistency in a world where broken homes provide nothing consistent.   A veteran is someone with experience in a particular area....Please consider sharing some of that experience and looking beyond the surface of what you see in others...invest in others...it WILL change a life.