Shiny black spit-shined shoes on the walk in the Memorial Gardens hurt my feet to look at their stiffness and his swollen ankles in them. His worn and creased pants too short, belt buckle aligned dress-right-dress with the button fold of his shirt. He wore an old faded USMC campaign hat pulled down almost to his white eyebrows. Almost comically. I pitied him in the way we sometimes do the old who mumble, never knowing just who they are talking to. I heard Inchon mentioned, and Chosin a time or two, and every time he said Puller knew, yeah, Chesty knew. I quit taking my lunch with a book in the Garden when he stopped coming around and after I saw his picture in the obituaries with a description of how he won his Silver Star and two Purple Hearts; wishing now I had listened closer. Moreβs the pity I never spoke to him.