A random act of kindness

Adjusting back to the night schedule hasn't been easy and work is tougher when you're stuck with all civilian nurses. For some reason, most of the night civilian nurses on my unit are pretty lazy and love pawning all the work on the military nurses and corpsman. Work is much better when I have another military nurse to back me up. We stick together, help each other out, and get thru the long shift together. Sunday night was difficult. It was my 3rd 12hr shift in a row and we were pretty busy. Our charge nurse that night was a civilian and as expected, pawned all the difficult patients and hard work on me and my fellow shipmate. By the end of the shift, my co-worker and I were wiped out. But of course we couldn't go home yet because we each had to stay over and get additional things done. I had to run around and get signatures (and a shot-ouch!) for my upcoming TAD (Temporary Assigned Duty) in Temecula. My co-worker had to go to PSD and get a new ID card. So afterward, we decided to go get breakfast at Denny's.

We left straight from work, still in our uniforms... we were both so starved. As we both sat down, I noticed this middle aged man looking at us... no big deal, I'm used to getting stares a lot when in uniform. Before he left, he came over to us and said "Have a nice day." We both thanked him and didn't think much of it. But when it was time for us to get the check, the waiter came over and told us that the elderly gentleman that was sitting across from us had already paid for our meals. What a surprise!!!! After a long hard night at work, it really brightened up our morning. I wish he was still there so we could thank him personally. Military life hasn't been easy but random acts of kindness from strangers like that really puts everything in perspective and makes me proud to be serving our country. I love living in a military town where there's so much support for our troops!