But the man in the lawn chair with the terrible bowl of apples was who he actually was — not the decorated Marine, not the wealthy man who fooled everyone about his fortune, but a person who found joy in small ordinary things and gave his love away quietly and asked for almost nothing back.

That is the version of him I want the veterans who come through our doors to meet.

Not a hero on a poster.

A man in a t-shirt, laughing, who knew what it was to be treated as a burden at the end, and who would have wanted, more than any monument, for the next lonely old soldier to simply have someone show up with a warm meal and stay a while.

Every case we take is a glass of water carried to someone who cannot pay for it.