Uncle

Mom and I met up with her brother for dinner tonight.  We went and had Chinese food.  He agreed with us that China Cook has the best BBQ pork ever.  We caught up and then we heard some stories.  The first one was about shrimp.  He told us shrimp is his favorite food.  When he was a kid, Orland came home with a box, that fell off the truck, of breaded shrimp.  So Granny cooked it all up.  All the kids were a bit apprehensive, never having had expensive shrimp before.  So he went to eat the first one and as he took a bite of the breading the shrimp went flying out the bottom.  Scared the beejesus out of him because he thought it was alive. 
The other story was about his time in the military.  It was the 60's and a friend and he were going to sign up for the navy. They were going to do a six year tour.  But as the date came closer he had second thoughts and told his friend he would rather take the two years if he got drafted.  Well he did.  About that time the military decided they needed some sergeants quick.  So they started this little program which was an accelerated program taking grunts to sergeants.  Uncle was chosen for this program, but never knew anything about it.  He just knew he was climbing the ranks pretty quick.  So he was in Germany awaiting becoming a sergeant.  The congress passed a law that no one would be sent to Vietnam unless they had at least a year left of their tour.  So his promotion was to happen about two weeks before his year deadline.  Somehow the list of promoted guys got misplaced and he was promoted a week after the deadline, so he could not be sent to Vietnam.  The universe works in mysterious ways. 
Mom really enjoyed her time with her brother.  She told me many times on the drive home how much she loves her brother and what a good guy he is.  And I agree.