I do a lot of writing in coffee shops. When visiting my old hometown of Dysart, Iowa, I frequent KE Black Mercantile, a kitchen store and cafe featuring the world’s best biscuits and gravy. In the mornings, the old-timers gather for coffee and talk about the weather, church events, and (because it’s Iowa) farming.

Last week in the shop, I approached some old farmers, a couple of whom have, for years, helped represent Dysart’s veterans by marching Old Glory down Main Street at the head of the town’s Fourth of July parade. One of those farmers was Dean Young, whose service in the U.S. Air Force changed his life as well as the lives of a lot of people I knew as neighbors and friends. Let me explain.