The Office of Homeland Diversity

In these times of global crisis, I am thankful for those laying down their lives for me and my family. Particulary, I am grateful to those who are serving overseas, including my friend Ben, who heads for the Middle East very soon. The story below is of a lighter nature, and only partially true, but is in no way intended to make light of the price our own dear young men and women are paying each day for me to live a normal, and a free, life. Thank you, Ben, and thank you, each one who has served, and is serving, in the US military.

Driving through Maine on the Turnpike the other day, we came up behind a car with a Navy Seals bumper sticker on it. My curiousity was piqued because this Navy Seal was not driving a hot sports car or a big manly truck, as I supposed that a Navy Seal would. No, this one was driving a late eighties model sedan. As I passed, I glanced over to see the driver - would it be some massive stud, protecting me and my family from hidden danger, or would it be his lovely wife bravely carrying on here in the states, while her massive stud travelled secretly in dangerous places on the other side of the globe, spreading freedom and democracy. Imagine my surprise to see that the driver appeared instead to be his grandmother!

But then I got to thinking . . . maybe this was not his grandmother after all. Maybe this brave woman was indeed one of our nation's elite fighters; maybe she is part of a new Homeland Security program reaching out to the elderly. How small of me to underestimate her at first glance! How bigoted, really. Here she is, bravely risking her all to protect me and my family from the imminent threats of evil in Northern Maine. Disguised as an All-American Grandmother, this woman was indeed, I suddenly realized, a lethal weapon, a coiled cobra waiting to strike, a microcosm of American military might. Who knows what other lucrative offers of fortune and fame she had graciously declined in order to serve her country in this thankless way - only to have plebes like me mistake her for a civilian housewife.

As we travelled on our way, we began to spot other inauspicious-looking grandmother-types who were doubtless also part of this fierce fighting machine. The woman at the tollbooth that looked like every librarian I've ever known, the old lady going 45 in the left lane - all were given a wider berth. As a matter of fact, this may be the first time I've ever tipped a toll collector (or a librarian, for that matter)! My image of Navy Seals, and of anonymous grandmothers with suspicious pistol-shaped bumps around their belt, will never be the same again.

Homeland Security is embracing diversity, and I, for one, have never felt safer in my life!