Changes in Attitude

I just reread " She Smiled at Me," and it reminded me of another smile, though it was in  a totally different context.
This is another Vietnam story, so if you have overdosed on the war, quit reading now.
Towards the end of my tour, we were on convoy. Most of my friends had gone home. Others had been medivaced for one reason or another. My mood was increasingly negative. I had just informed the first sergeant the he had been in the army so long that he didn't know what the truth was, or some words to that effect. I'm pretty sure that cost me a promotion, but at the time it was worth it. Hell! it's still worth it!
It was hot, as usual and dry season, when the red dust  was like cocoa powder. Everything near the roads, including me, had a coating of the stuff.
I was in the back of a truck, looking forward to the truck ahead of us, when that truck slowed to let a civilian jump up on the tail gate. He carried a staff and wore the saffron robe of a Buddhist monk. His head was shaved and his skin was nearly ebony. Perhaps he was of Indian descent or a child of an African legionnaire from the French colonial era. His face was so serene. And he smiled such a smile of peace that it changed my attitude. No, I was not filled with love for all of God's creation, particularly the first sergeant, and most particularly, Lyndon Johnson, but for that day and some days after, I no longer felt a need to be angry.