I had the most extraordinary happenstance yesterday.

I was working the Boy Scout Christmas tree sale (we make an absolute killing every year) with Dave, a guy with whom I get along well. Dave is a vice-principal at the local high school, but could have had quite the career in sales. To say that he's a “people person” would be an understatement.

Dave talks to everyone as if he's known them for years, and I sometimes forget that. At any rate a couple drove in with a young woman in tow. Presumably their daughter. By “young”, I mean early twenties.

Dave began talking to them like they were old friends and pretty soon they were exchanging details such as where everyone lived, etc.

The young lady got sucked in to the point where she told Dave that she had recently moved to be with her husband in North Carolina. Eventually she said something about Ft. Bragg. At that point I jumped in and said that I was quite familiar with Ft. Bragg.

Now bear in mind that it's a habit of military people to often speak in acronyms that make no sense whatsoever to the general public. They make perfect sense to military people, and since most of your association with is with other military people, it often doesn't even strike you to state things in a “civilian friendly” way.

When I mentioned that I knew Ft. Bragg, she said “He's in the Q-Course. He's going to be a Delta”. Well, who would have figured that selling Christmas trees in a little town I was going to meet someone whose husband is right now in the Special Forces Qualification Course, hoping to become an SF medic?

To make it even better, her dad piped up that she was a veteran of Iraq. I asked about her branch of service, etc. and she's an Army Reserve inelligence analyst.

So it was a neat event.