Too soon old

I had occasion to hang around Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for about 2 months last year.  Nothing serious for me, I just had to check in periodically to examined.  I'll tell that story later but something occurred to me just now and I figured I should write about it.

To start with the American military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany is the main clearing hospital for anybody who is wounded, injured or sickened in Iraq (used to be) and Afghanistan.  They stabilize people for transport in those countries and fly them to Landstuhl.  There they treat them and/or stabilize them further if they need to be transported back home.  Anyway there are many badly wounded soldiers of various nationalities there or passing through.

I was walking by the main entrance one afternoon and I saw a guy in a wheelchair parked about 50 feet from the door.  He was obviously recovering from something serious and there were two people, or three who were sitting with him.  That is all they were doing, sitting.  The guy in the chair looked ahead with little expression except tiredness, great tiredness.  The people sitting with him sat quietly also, saying little and not looking at much.

I only saw them briefly as I passed by but the scene stuck with me for all these months and I didn't know why.  It just struck me though, it looked like a something you would see in front of an old age home.  The visitors just sitting with the old person and the old person just sitting and looking, too tired or sick or hurting to do anything else.  I wonder if that is what it is like to be recovering from a bad wound, to be old and used up decades to soon.