"What's going on, fat boy?"
That was how Bob Mack greeted me earlier this week. With friends like that, who needs friends, right?
We both laughed. The burley, aging and former detective with the sheriff's office smiled beneath his snow-white Fu-manchu mustache. The good-natured insult was Bob's way of expressing happiness at seeing a long-time friend he hadn't encountered in well over 18 months.
I first met Bob probably fifteen years ago, though I don't recall the exact circumstance under which we'd encountered one another...I'd guess it was at a crime scene involving both deputies and city coppers. I DO remember my first impression: gruff, gravel-voiced and unapproachable.
I was wrong on that last item. He's one of the friendliest people I've ever met.
Mack worked some big cases over his 21 years at the sheriff's office, eighteen of which were in the detective bureau, and he seemed to know all the sketchy players on the wrong side of the law, particularly in the county's Little Appalachia area; folks with family lineage traceable to Kentucky and West Virginia. He was a wealth of information if you needed to know about burglars, thieves, dope-slingers and safe-crackers and I used his knowledge on more than a few occasions.
It wasn't until early 2017, though, that I really got to know this man, a handful years after we'd both retired.
Military veterans have always garnered massive respect on my part and I'd turned that interest into a writing project, interviewing local people who'd served in our armed forces and telling their stories in the local newspaper and social media.
Bob had served during the Vietnam war; I approached him about doing an article and he agreed, so we set a time for an in-home interview. When that day arrived I saw a totally different side of the man, one I'd never known before.
Bob Mack is a war hero. A combat-tested, twice wounded, decorated Army Ranger.
He'd grown up in Florida, he'd told me, and had wanted to do something 'new and exciting'...like any other 18-year-old...so Bob joined the United States Army during the nation's early involvement in southeast Asia. He'd gone through basic training, advanced infantry training, jump school (parachute) and then ranger school.
For the uninitiated, ranger school is a very, very tough course; only 40% of those who start the training become rangers.
I spent two and a half hours with Bob, sitting at his kitchen table and listening to his story of service, of how he'd been promoted to sergeant and been assigned a 12-man LRRP (long-range reconnaissance patrol, pronounced 'lurp' in army slang) unit.
I listened to his stories of combat, of losing close friends, of being scared out of his mind. Out of respect for the man, I'll leave out details he'd confided and asked not to be printed. I'll just say that tears were shed by both of us. A lot of them. Bob told me things even his wife of over 30 years doesn't know to this day.
Suffice it to say Mack earned his Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. He shed blood for his country to the extent that he was sent stateside for medical care and treatment. He still has scars, both physical and mental, that will be with him for the rest of his days on this earth.
He thanked me for listening that day. To say I was humbled is a gross understatement.
These days Bob spends his summers in Ohio and winters at his place in Florida, doing a lot of fishing while we of the northlands shovel snow and pray for an early spring.
He earned that, too.
We're having breakfast next week sometime, as he's headed back to Florida the end of this month; we really couldn't sit and talk during our meeting at the Lexington soccer fields, as we both had grandkids to watch practice. I look forward to catching up with him and hearing how his battle with cancer has progressed. So far he's fared pretty well.
And, for the record, I weigh two hundred and eight pounds, down from 243 in 2018. 'Fat Boy', he'd called me....
