Cause and Effect

February 14, 2006

I met with this man yesterday, a 34 year old disabled vet, who was looking to rent an apartment. Although I knew he was disabled after having talked with him on the phone, I was unaware of what his disability was until I met him. He looked like a nice man, not your typical war hero adorned with shiny medals, but a Harley Davidson biker dude with a choppy beard, one inch ear plugs and tattoos canvassing the length of his forearm. As he began to stand up from the steps he was sitting on, with the help of a cane, I noticed his legs trembling. A gunshot, shrapnel, I thought. I introduced myself and he slowly followed me to the building door, into the vestibule and to the apartment door. While I was fishing for the correct key to let us in, he started to lose balance towards me and began to fall. I reached around to grab his arm from behind to help him stabilize, which I did successfully, when suddenly I thought of something that hadn't even occurred to me before. A simple thought really, but one too often overlooked and under appreciated:

This man is disabled. This 34 year old man will never be able to walk again without assistance. He will never be able do the things that I take for granted: running, swimming, hiking, sledding... walking more than two steps without fear of falling down... having the humility to continuously allow strangers help him back up.

So I helped him into the apartment and he took a look around. He seemed very excited about the prospect of living there and kept telling me how small his current apartment is in comparison. After helping him complete the application and chatting a bit, I worked up the nerve to ask what had happened. To make a long story short, he had been in the air force in Iraq. Twice. Once in the Gulf War and again during this war. According to him, in that time of serving, he frequently worked with and around chemical weapons (among other hazardous materials, I assume) and was exposed to some pretty bad shit. After a while he started feeling sick and weak and left for medical reasons. Sometime later (perhaps a year or so) he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And so there it is, another human life crushed by the stupidity of others.

But what was weird about this whole encounter was something he said after telling me about his MS. And I'm not exactly sure if it's something that gives me hope for him (for humanity as a whole) or if it's something that frightens the snot out of me. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, "...and even knowing that this would be the result of my time there, I'd do it anyway."

I thought about that for a bit, trying to make sense of his reasoning for saying something like that. And I believe him, I truly do, but it's so insane to me. And I wonder, what did he possibly accomplish to justify his disability at 34 years old? Is anything being accomplished? Can there be any justification for the thousands of lives lost? There has to be, right? Right?

Postscript
I have finished running his application for the apartment and submitted it to my manager. And strictly from an American business standpoint, it seems as though he'll probably be declined due to lack of payments on his credit cards and student loans. Huh.