The clapping was kind, and I was grateful for it, but most of the people clapping were thanking me for something they could only imagine.

The old men who saluted knew.

You could see it in their faces — men who had their own drawers at home, their own days they didn’t talk about, their own lists of names.

When one veteran salutes another, there is no imagination in it.

There is only recognition, one carrier of the same weight acknowledging another, and it asks for nothing and explains nothing and means everything.

I returned each of their salutes as I passed, and for a moment the aisle of that airplane felt like something older and larger than a commercial flight — felt like a line of men across years and wars, none of whom needed the story told to them, all of whom already knew.