I was around six or seven years old and it was in the early 1970s. I lived on a country road with only a few neighbors. It was around 3 AM one summer night and hot. AC wasn't really around yet so all windows in the house were open and a light rainstorm with occasional flashes of lightning was going on. My bedroom had a window facing the road with a view of the neighbor’s driveway and front lawn. I was in the top bunk at window level with my younger brother on the bunk below.

I woke up due to lightning and thunder. Between bursts, I could hear someone crying and sobbing uncontrollably. I strained to see where it was coming from when a lightning flash revealed my neighbor sitting in the lawn near the road hunched over crying and rocking back and forth. I went to my parents’ room, woke my father and told him what I saw. My father advised that our neighbor was a combat veteran who had just got home from Vietnam and he was having nightmares. Later in life I learned that he was a marine who operated a machine gun and had witnessed things no person should have to endure. I watched my dad put on his raincoat, grab an umbrella and go sit next to him. He put his arm around him and sat and hugged him while covering him with the umbrella for at least an hour. To this day It's one of the most compassionate and emotional things I've ever witnessed.