What I did with most of it is a fund.
It’s called the Ninth.
It does one thing: it pays the gap — the eleven hundred dollars, the four hundred dollars, the co-pay, the flight home — for service members and veterans whose families have told them it’s bad timing.
No application essay.
No proof of hardship.
One page, one phone call with Bernadette Pike, who runs the intake and who has told me twice that she’d do it for free and who I pay anyway.
Four hundred and eleven people so far.
The rule is printed at the top of the one page, and Bernadette wrote it, and I have never touched a word of it:
“YOU DO NOT HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHY YOUR FAMILY DIDN’T HELP.
WE HAVE NEVER ONCE NEEDED TO KNOW.
TELL US THE NUMBER AND THE DATE.”
Last month a kid called.
Twenty-two, Coast Guard, dental surgery, eight hundred dollars, and he spent four minutes apologizing for asking before he ever said the amount.
Bernadette put him through to me because she thought I’d want it.
He said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, I know this isn’t a real emergency, my mom says I’m being — ”
And I said the only thing I have ever known how to say about any of this.
“Son.
What’s the date of the surgery?”
“Thursday.”
