Michael is king of the Bigg Chill parking lot. The Bigg Chill is a west side institution in LA. Long before Starbucks’ Howard Schultz invested $27 million in Pinkberry, The Bigg Chill was serving frozen yogurt from a small storefront just south of UCLA...far enough to be away from any campus traffic, but close enough and a straight enough shot down Westwood that the sorority girls driving the expensive cars their daddies bought them often need help navigating their way out of the tight, efficient parking lot. 

That’s where Michael comes in. For two years now he’s been there almost every night. Tall and strapping, with towels thrown over his right shoulder, he’s there to wash people’s windows while they enjoy their yogurt. Then, when they are ready to leave, he directs and stops traffic and helps people out of tight spots. He wears a vest that has fluorescent safety tape on it and a cap.

Though he doesn’t look old enough, Michael tells me that he served in Vietnam. He used to be a truck driver, but his job went to Mexico and he says he’s still mad at Bush Senior for that, but he doesn’t want to sit around and do nothing.  “I’ve got 10 fingers and 10 toes and five senses. There’s no reason for me not to be working,” he says. 

Michael lives up the road at the VA Home with other war veterans and it turns out he’s a little peeved at another Bush, George W. As someone who served his country proudly, he’s still upset about the Iraq War and that some of his comrades were “killed for a lie. And now Bush is in Texas, and Cheney is in Montana.”  I don’t engage him in any kind of debate, I just listen. He’s calm, but there’s an anger that roils under the surface. 

My friend and I shake Michael’s hand, thank him for his service to our country, and  get into our car. After making sure our path is clear, Michael comes back to the front of the car, stands ramrod straight and he salutes us as we leave. His form is perfect. 

About 20 minutes later, as I’m driving back home, the Bigg Chill has closed, but Michael is still there, walking the perimeter, making sure his kingdom is safe one last time until he returns tomorrow. 

May 23: Michael

Why I started this blog

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Many of you have probably already read the letter that Iraqi vet Tomas Young recently wrote to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Young, the subject of the documentary “Body of War,” enlisted in the Army two days after 9/11, believing he would be part of a military team that would bring to justice the people responsible for the terrorist attacks.  Instead, he went to Iraq and was paralyzed in a 2004 battle after being shot in the spine. He has decided to stop any nourishment that keeps him alive and to die the way he wishes. 

The letter is powerful stuff. Even if you’re one of the minuscule, tiny minority who feels the war in Iraq was justified, I’d still encourage you to read Young’s letter. It’s impossible to not be moved by his words at the inadequate treatment returning soldiers receive. These are the words of someone who paid an unbearably high price for serving his country, who has suffered in ways that most of us can never imagine, for a war that lined the pockets of Cheney and his buddies and, in the process, left close to 4500 U.S. soldiers and Marines dead and many, many more wounded and traumatized. 

Young, 33, isn’t anti-war. He writes: “I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend our country I love—the country I love.”

Here’s a link to the letter and Young reading it aloud. Young is under hospice care. I wish him a peaceful, painless passing. As he states, none of us escapes our day of reckoning. Not him, not me, not past presidents. No one.

Today’s $10 goes to Wounded Warrior Project, whose mission is to “honor and empower wounded warriors  returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a non-partisan organization. 

March 24: Wounded Warrior Project

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