You Never Know....

who we encounter in our daily lives and how that encounter may impact our life in the future. 

I recall living in the barracks while assigned to and living in Germany.  Often times, we would encounter individuals in the community bathroom and shower area and not know their rank.  There was one individual who was very quiet and kept to himself.  The one thing about military life in Germany is that most of the guys would reach out, introduce themselves, and make you feel part of the unit.  For some reason, folks did not reach out to this individual.  I would always make it a point to say "hello" to him.  In time, some of the others pretty much stopped acknowledging him and even chose to ignore him.

Well, fast forward 6 months and we're all at the track for our annual physical training test.  One component of the annual tests was the 2-mile run which had to be completed in less than 20 minutes.  There was a pack of about 20 guys.  We had numbers affixed to our back and we had to yell out our number to the scorer each time we completed a lap.  And who was the scorer?  None other than the quiet guy in the community bathroom/shower area.  This time, though, he was wearing his fatigues to which Sergeant First Class strips and Combat Infantry Badge were affixed.  He was a Viet Nam war vet who served in the Infantry. 

Some of my fellow runners were shocked and dismayed at his sight.  I remember huffing and puffing around the track yelling out my number to this scorer who would nod and jot something down on his clipboard as he did for everyone else.  At the end of my eight laps, he nodded and acknowledged that I was done.  Some other guys in the pack who were slightly behind me and thought they were done were told by this scorer that they had another lap to go, that they weren't done.  Interestingly, these were the guys who took to completely ignoring this stranger turned lap counter.

The lesson I learned that day is to always be mindful of our encounters with others.  Always reach out to and acknowledge the new person in your organization and treat him/her with dignity and respect.  You never know whether those encounters can one day come back to haunt or help you.  On that day on the track, I saw several of my barracks mates have to run an extra lap and exceed the allotted time for completing the 2-mile run.