Dear Editor

As a Vietnam veteran, there are times when danger is near that old habits are hard to ignore. Count among those the instinct to seek cover when there is a sudden flash of white light and a just as sudden explosion.   Last evening around sundown when the powerful storm blew through as lightning ground strikes seemed to be all around me while I drove from route 46 to route 23, I saw a human form walking along the side of the road as the steamy torrential rain fell and lightning cracked. While my instinct for self preservation was paramount in my mind, I was relatively safe behind the wheel of my vehicle knowing that the tires would insulate me, not so how ever for the man I had just seen and could not stop for because of the divided lanes and curbs and passing cars and trucks.   But because of my experiences 40 years ago, my instincts were in full swing as I threaded my way to the very next off ramp in order to turn around and do what ever I could to find the man and get him out of harms way. As I did that, I recalled all the low spots where puddles form that I have come to know exist during such downpours and as I steered around them, it seemed that at almost every other mile marker some one was pulled over with their flashers on as I splashed onward on my personal mission to 'leave no one behind'.   What can I tell you? Old habits are hard to break, some of them stay with some of us for a lifetime.   And so I wheeled towards the place where route 80, 46 and 23 all collide, and as I approached the new train station, I saw him across the highway, head down in the driving rain and gray miserable mist and spray of the passing cars as I set about to make my determined way across the highway over pass, and back down the clover leaf and as I came up on him from behind I activated my hazard lights like so many other drivers had been doing through out the ordeal and he was incredulous that I had stopped.   And just as the door opened and the stranger leaped in, over my left shoulder I heard a vehicles horn blaring from a large red Dodge pick up truck whose driver I assumed was warning me that he was going to be turning just in front of me, but no, he had no intention of turning, or slowing down much less stopping when he saw my flashers and maybe even a drenched human being in danger of being struck by lightning? And just as quickly off the truck went, and for a moment I was angry.   Angry because yet another reckless driver had not yielded when there was an obvious road hazard ahead, nor yielded when there was a pedestrian in trouble at the side of the road, with no time to use his brakes and slow down or even change a lane, but always time to blast a horn instead?   Checking yet again over my shoulder I pulled away from the side of the road as I turned off my flashers and turned on my blinker, as the man with the heavy foreign accent began to express his profound gratitude for my having stopped for him as he told me of his fear of being hit by lightning, and I explained I had seen him earlier but could not safely have gotten to him and that I just could not leave him behind no matter what. I asked him where he was going and he told me he lived over the mini mart on Mountainview and we howled at how we were almost neighbors, in gratitude he asked if he could buy me coffee or a soft drink?   Today, Independence Day, as I see people fly the stars and stripes, and I read and hear from others thanking me for having served, I recall this new generation of veterans of whom I am very proud of, and as I do, I also recall someone who in their comfort and safety availed themselves last night of their right of way without regard to the safety and best interests of any one else, and I have a strange sense of Peace that person will never know for my having done what I could to help a stranger walking along a dangerous road as light flashed and explosions cracked, not unlike my experience a lifetime ago half way around the globe at the edge of freedoms shinning.   And least we  forget dear editor and readers, that when the lights went out from 2 power outages there were other dedicated people that I will never meet that were willing to go out into the night and do what needed to be done for you and me and a stranger caught in a storm despite the danger these weather conditions represented to them as they went about their work.   Stewart Resmer Wayne NJ