McCORDSVILLE — John Smitha, a 79-year-old U.S. Air Force vet, has two Army combat patches hanging from his car visor from a war he never fought and a military branch he never served.
The patches were given to him from two separate soldiers who gifted him with their own patches right off their sleeves.
One was from a soldier he met at a restaurant, while doing volunteer work for the nonprofit Warrior’s Hope. The other was from a National Guard soldier whose lunch he bought at Kinsey’s Italian Cafe in McCordsville last week.
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Smitha, who served in the Air Force from 1958 to 1965, decided to pay for a meal for a couple of Army soldiers on Aug. 19 and quietly slip out the door unnoticed.
But the soldiers wanted to make sure he knew how much they appreciated the gesture.
Command Sgt. Maj. Angie Roman, a member of the 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Indiana National Guard, ripped off the Afghanistan combat patch that was velcroed to the sleeve of her camouflage fatigues and asked the server to give it to Smitha, a regular at the restaurant.
“It was an honor to receive it,” said Smitha, who doesn’t know the soldiers whose lunch he bought while out with his wife, Sue.
Sally Downs, who was waiting tables that day, said it was one of the most heartwarming scenes she’s seen in her time as a server.
“It was just the coolest moment. It gave me goosebumps,” she said.
Downs was waiting on Roman and Command Sgt. Maj. Mike Rossiter, who were dining with fellow soldiers from nearby Fort Benjamin Harrison, when Smitha paid their check and slipped out the door. When Downs told the two officers, Roman took the patch from her sleeve and asked her to give it to him.
“He paid for his meal and theirs and left, because he didn’t want any credit for buying theirs. They were so appreciative,” recalled Downs.
Smitha, who lives in Lawrence, knows what it’s like to have fellow vets or civilians buy his meal. Every Friday, he and a group of veterans meet up for breakfast, typically wearing baseball caps or shirts emblazoned with their branch of service, and “four or five times somebody’s bought our breakfast. It’s kind of neat to pay it forward,” he said.
There’s a tie that binds all military veterans and enlisted personnel, no matter when or where they served, he said. Buying one another a meal or sharing a patch — which can be replaced — is a way to show mutual appreciation and respect.
“When they cross your path it’s nice to pay them a little respect and say thank you, because they don’t get enough of that,” he said. “You’ve got to thank them all you can, and pray for them to come back home safe.”
Smitha was a security guard his first four years of service with the Air Force and signed up for Special Ops his second tour, when he spent 39 months jumping from planes at night over Libya, East Germany and Venezuela.
“Then I came home and met my lovely wife, and we’ve been married 57 years,” he said.
The couple, who are regulars at Kinsey’s, have twin sons who live in Fortville and Avon.
Smitha counsels vets through Warrior’s Hope each Thursday at the veterans center at Fort Benjamin Harrison near his home.
Many of them struggle with post traumatic stress or getting acclimated back to everyday life after service, he said, adding that the national veteran suicide rate is 22 a day.
“When you’re out in battle and you’re going through all that chaos, it affects you. It can be hard to retain your sanity,” said Smitha, who admits to struggling with rage issues when he first came home as a young man.
He returned from service to a broken marriage, but he soon met his wife, Sue, who helped him tame his anger issues and get back into church. Not all veterans are that lucky, he said.
Through Warrior’s Hope, Smitha is happy to help vets find their way when they’re struggling. ”We laugh together and we cry together,” he said. “I don’t care what branch of service or what rank you are, or how old you are. We’re all there for each other.”
Even if it’s something as simple as picking up the check.
