The True Price Of Gas

Like my mother does for me, I listened and I told him what I thought about everything we discussed.Throughout the day, the subject repeatedly came back to things like gas prices, the commute he will face to and from his chosen job, how much he likes beautiful cars, tons of his observations about my Prius, how much he is growing in his life and in his outlook.

Of all the things we discussed that day, I think the most meaningful thing I told him was how I feel about a friend of mine.

We live in the D.C. area, so we spent a lot of time in traffic that day, of course. At times we were in a sea of SUVs and other gas guzzlers. Some of them had military bumper stickers on them. Many of them had "Pray for our Troops" stickers on them, or stickers of American flags.

We talked about how some people call SUV’s “TSV’s” … or Terrorist Support Vehicles. I told him that it makes me sad when I see those kinds of stickers on vehicles like that, especially when they only have one person in them, which is usually the case.

I talked about my friend, and what his life will be like after returning from Iraq with a traumatic brain injury. Not only what a tragedy it is that his life is changed forever, or that there truly is no appropriate way to thank someone like that for his sacrifice for our country. But that what we have done to that priceless patriot is selfish and wrong. Obviously, we didn’t do it on purpose, but it's partly our fault. And we continue doing it every day.

I am literally moved to tears. You see, this friend is not bitter for his injuries.