The first time I saw him I hesitated, maybe it was the unshaven face that stopped me, it might have been the tattered clothes. I didn’t pay much attention to the sign, I was more concerned with the eyes.

What story did he have to tell?

His eyes were narrowed, yet pleading, his stance was broken, but resolved. He wasn’t asking for much, maybe a little money or some food, sometimes just a smile was enough. His skin was cracked and dirty. It obvious that he hadn’t showered in weeks.

I wondered were his feet had carried him. I wondered what brought him to that specific corner. I wondered if anyone cared about him.

All he wanted was some food, maybe a little conversation or a hug. But we kept driving by. Car after car, some slow, some fast, but all of them nervously looking the opposite direction, trying to shed any guilt they might feel for not stopping. Occasionally someone would stop, roll down their window and hand him some food, then once again they were on their way, for fear that their daily routine my be interrupted by the needs of someone else.

Eventually as the sun began to set he turned to be on his way, for him it was another day survived, but for us, it was just another day. He slowly trudged to his resting place for the night. Sometimes a park bench, sometimes beneath the shelter of a bridge. On the occasional chilly night, when we had just enough change to spare, he would spend the darkness riding the streets, one bus after the other, doing anything he could to stay warm.

His change however would indeed run out, and as the sun began to rise, again he found himself on a corner, hungry, dirty, and forgotten. For him it was another night survived. But for us it was just another night.

No one knew where he had been or what he had done. We all assumed he was just another homeless man, when in fact he had a story that everyone needed, but no one wanted to understand. He wasn’t just another homeless man.

His tear filled eyes told a different story.

The tattoos covering his arms told a tale of heart break and sacrifice, if only one could see past the dirt and uncleaned skin. For him they were reminders of another thing survived, but to us they were just another scar. His heart was broken from years of alcohol abuse, and his mind was tormented by nights of hellish haunting’s.

To us, it was the reason he was homeless, but to him he wondered why he had ever survived.

His long and un-kept hair couldn’t tell his story. The rag tag clothes he wore resembled nothing of his previous glory. Beneath the shell we all were used to seeing, struggled a soul that was just trying to keep believing. Trying to understand how he could sacrifice so much for the Red, White, and Blue, and be ignored by me and by you.