Thank You For Your Service

In this age where journalists are seen as the enemy or disbelieved as biased, no matter how much work we do into producing factual reports and avoid taking sides, something very unusual happened yesterday.
I was in a cigar store in Bend, Oregon.
I went into the walk-in humidor. The aged tobacco gave off a welcome, cedar-like smell. Row upon row of cigars confronted me. I rarely smoke cigars so I don’t have any favorites.
After a while, the owner, a hefty guy with curly gray hair and beard, came in and asked if I needed any recommendations. He reached into one of the cigar boxes, produced a stogie and said it was from Honduras. I commented that I used to live there. Then he produced another one, from Nicaragua. I said I used to Iive there too.
“Wow, you get around,” he said.
“I was there when there was a war on,” I replied.
“Thank you for your service.”
“I wasn’t in the military. I was a journalist there.”
“Still, thank you for your service,” he said, looking me straight in the eye.
Indeed. I, and other journalists, were performing a service, by keeping the public informed of events.
I chose the Nicaraguan cigar. We went to the register and he said: “I’m giving you the military discount.”
How many of us journalists have been thanked by the public for our work, especially for covering wars where we endured many of the same dangers and hardships as front-line soldiers?
Rarely, or never, in my case. Until yesterday.
I was very thankful.
It’s an affirmation that journalism still matters to a lot of people.

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