"After I got shot you wanna know the very first thing that entered my mind before I blacked out?" "Coins." "I'm 8 years old again on a tour of the U. S. Mint." "I'm listening to a guide explain how coins are made." "How they're punched out of sheet metal." "How they're rimmed and beveled." "How they are stamped and cleaned." "And how each and every batch of coins are personally examined." "Just in case any have slipped through with the slightest imperfection." "That's what popped into my head." "I am a coin in the United States Army." "I was minted in the year 1 980." "I've been punched from sheet metal." "I've been stamped and cleaned." "My ridges have been rimmed and beveled." "But now I have two small holes in me." "I'm no longer in perfect condition." "So there's something else I wanna tell you." "Right before everything went black you wanna know the very last thing that entered my mind?" "You." "Why not?" "Because there are a lot of things you'd be doing." "Just like playing tennis." "Wimbledon?" "I don't know." "Just gonna go." "I'm gonna host the thing." "Six-thirty." "And you and I could go at 1 0?" "Oh, shit!" "Oh, no!" "Oh, no, Randy, no!" "I'm sorry." "I'll get it, I'll get it, I'm on it." "I'm sorry." "I'm sorry." "Okay?" "I'm on it." "My whole life is in that bag." "I got it." "I got it." "You got it." "Dude." "I was gonna get that." "I mean, thanks for jumping in." "Yeah, no problem." "But I mean, hey, I'll take it." "Thank you so much!" "Who jumps off a 20-foot pier?" "Gosh, I'm a mess." "You are a lifesaver." "I'm Savannah." "John." "John." "Brave man." "This is my life in here, so I owe" " I owe you." "Don't worry about it." "Nice to meet you." "Nice to meet you." "You all have a good night." "Yeah, thanks." "I was in the water for that." "I was seriously getting it for you." "This guy's crazy." "Yeah, no, I swear I'm not." "I'm not stalking you." "I just gotta get my board." "Are you staying here?" "Yeah, yeah, I'm from around here." "Hey, John, do you want to--?" "My house is right over there." "We were actually going back right now." "Do you want to join us?" "We're having a barbecue." "It's okay." "I don't want to intrude on y'all." "My dad's making dinner." "Okay." "Well, I could at least give you a beer for the walk home." "Where is it?" "Right over there." "You in the military or something?" "Yeah." "Really?" "What branch are you in?" "Army, Special Forces." "Oh, Special Forces." "That's impressive." "That's...." "Is that like a Special Forces ring they give you?" "Is that what it says on it?" "It looks nice on you." "Aren't you supposed to be wearing a hat too?" "Like a French hat, a beret." "That's what it's called?" "Randy." "I'm just joking with him." "You shouldn't make fun of a guy who can kill you with his bare hands." "Big guy." "Rock them, sock them, let's go." "How about that?" "You know, I'm gonna go get a beer." "Soldier." "Pleasure." "I'm sorry about him." "He thinks he likes me." "Yeah, I think he likes you too." "No, I'm not his type." "He just doesn't know it yet." "What?" "Come on, I just think you're probably everybody's type." "See what I mean?" "Is this who I think it is?" "Alan, Alan." "Hey, buddy, I want you to meet John." "John, this is Alan." "Alan, nice to meet you." "Say hi." "He's a little bit shy, isn't he?" "Hey, where's your dad?" "Over there." "Two steps behind, as usual." "Sorry, he's like a heat-seeking missile every time he sees you." "Oh, hey, I'm Tim." "John." "Sorry." "Nice to meet you." "Oh, you Special Forces, huh?" "Yes, sir." "You stationed out at Fort Bragg?" "No, Germany, actually." "Oh, you're on leave." "Yes, sir." "I hope you're enjoying yourself." "Yeah, I think I am." "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt." "It's nice to meet you though." "Nice to meet you too." "Come on, son." "Let's go." "Let's go." "Hello." "Hello, John." "Hello, Alan." "Wow, that was really amazing." "Yeah?" "He never talks to anybody." "Only his family." "He talked to you." "Yeah, but I'm practically his family." "I've known him since he was born." "Yeah?" "When do you go back?" "Two weeks." "It must be scary what you do." "Boring mostly." "You know, long stretches of boring." "Occasional flashes of scary." "Full moon tonight." "Do you ever notice how big the moon is when it's rising?" "And how little it gets when it's up in the sky." "You know, that's just your perspective." "It doesn't matter where it is in the sky or where you are if you hold your hand up and close one of your eyes it's never bigger than your thumb." "Where'd you learn that?" "I don't know." "Somewhere." "You just made your own fire." "That's very impressive." "Very primal." "But you're still not gonna be able to cook that hotdog, I fear." "I fear that as well." "I should probably be getting going anyways." "I'm sorry." "I hope you don't get into too much trouble." "I think it's probably too late for that." "Yeah." "Thank you." "Yeah." "No, you're welcome." "Would you wanna maybe do this again tomorrow night?" "Tomorrow is chicken." "I don't think you're gonna wanna try it." "I was kind of hoping maybe we'd let somebody else do the cooking." "Type of thing." "Okay." "Yeah?" "So maybe I'll come by around 6 or something?" "Okay." "All right." "So I'll see you soon, then?" "I'll see you soon, then." "Yeah." "Soon." "Hey." "Hey, man." "We're headed into town for some ice cream." "You want a ride?" "No, no, no, it's fine." "I don't mind walking at all." "It's fine." "Sure?" "All right." "I appreciate it." "Yeah." "Hey, Alan, move on over here." "Here, I'll undo your belt." "Five, six, seven, eight..." "So how long are you in town for?" "...nine." "We live here year-round now." "Yeah, we were driving down every weekend anyways so I finally just convinced my wife this just made the most sense." "She didn't want ice cream?" "Who?" "Oh, my wife." "No." "No, actually she's on vacation herself." "White sheep, white sheep, white sheep." "It's difficult to take trips together." "White sheep." "It's fine." "We make it work." "I'm up here on the left." "Hey, John." "For the record, if you do anything to hurt Savannah I'm gonna have to break something." "Something in your leg." "Some" " One of the bones in there." "Okay." "It's just I know her father and he would expect me to say something like that." "It'd just sound a lot more natural coming out of his mouth." "It sounded fine." "It sounded fine." "No, it" "Yes, it did." "No, it didn't." "lt did." "It really did." "It didn't." "But thank you." "lt really did." "You think so?" "Yeah, it did." "Okay." "Hey, don't honk the horn, it's nighttime." "Good night, John." "Good night, Tim." "Thanks for the ride." "Yeah, no problem." "Hey, Dad, I'm not gonna be able to stay for dinner." "Well, I made lasagna." "I know you made lasagna." "It's Sunday." "Can I borrow the car?" "Thanks." "Best seafood you'll ever have." "Yeah, I know." "I used to come here all the time." "Really?" "Are you sure you don't wanna go somewhere, I don't know, nice?" "Nice?" "No, I wanna go somewhere good." "Okay." "What the hell you doing here?" "Come on, Steve." "It's been three years already." "I don't want any trouble here." "You're not gonna get any." "I promise." "All right." "Thank you." "What happened with that guy out there?" "What guy?" "What's the story with him?" "No story." "Really?" "Yeah." "He's an old buddy of mine." "What?" "Your dad get mad at you for coming home late last night?" "No." "He's not really the type that gets mad." "What kind of guy is he then?" "Quiet one?" "Could be worse, I guess." "I guess." "And your mom?" "Nope, just me and my dad." "Did he raise you all by himself?" "Yeah." "Why do you wanna know about my dad?" "Just curious." "Curious about where you come from." "I wanna meet your dad." "Tonight." "Look, you're" " You're not gonna get very much out of him." "So, I don't know, just don't take it personally, okay?" "Hey, Pop." "I got somebody I want you to meet." "Hey." "This is Savannah." "Hi." "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Tyree." "He" " This is my" " He collects coins." "He" " It's kind of like his big hobby." "This is amazing." "You have so many coins." "How did you get started in all this?" "Through John, actually." "Not his thing anymore." "Hey, we should probably maybe go." "What is this coin?" "That's a Sacagawean mule." "It's actually...." "Do you want to see some more?" "Absolutely, yes, if you don't mind." "Put this glove on then." "Thanks." "This is a humorous one." "This is a satirical coin." "This is massive." "Yeah, William Jennings Bryan, when he ran for president he was" " He believed in-- No, don't turn it over." "Leave it here." "Do you remember that he had the free silver policy." "You remember." "And McKinley was his opponent and he's" " Wait, here." "Now see, that's a real silver dollar." "That's the size of a silver dollar." "And McKinley said that if Bryan had his way then the silver dollars would be that big." "Yeah." "That's amazing." "Can you imagine walking around with that in your pocket?" "That's really funny." "That's humorous." "Now, these" "Pop, we can't do this right now." "We can't be here all night." "I have" " I have some to show you." "This is fascinating." "These are all matched in color." "I had fun tonight." "I like your dad." "You shouldn't be too hard on him." "He loves you." "I can tell even if you can't." "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute." "Wait, Savannah." "I mean...." "So I guess I'll see you soon, then?" "I'll see you soon, then." "Where you been all day?" "I've been busy." "You're on spring break." "You're supposed to be lounging on the beach all day." "You're not supposed to be busy doing things." "I want to show you something." "The family that lived here, their home was damaged by the hurricane." "What, so now you're rebuilding it?" "Yup." "Well, not just me." "You're starting to make me a little nervous." "Why am I starting to make you nervous?" "Because I'm starting to think you might be too good of a person for me." "No, I'm not that good of a person." "You're sneaking off every day to do manual labor on a house for charity." "On your spring break." "Yeah, you're right." "It's selfish, really, me being this generous." "You don't drink, you don't smoke." "Nope." "Nope." "You probably don't sleep around." "Absolutely not." "Okay, look, you gotta have a fault." "I do." "Okay, care to enlighten me?" "I curse." "No." "I do." "No, you don't." "I do." "I haven't heard you." "Well, that's because it's in my mind." "There's a never-ending stream of curse words that I'm thinking at all times." "Okay, fine, just say one then." "No, I can't tell you because it's filthy." "Right." "Yeah." "Okay, all right." "Fair enough." "No, I have faults, John." "Trust me, I have plenty of them." "You'll see." "I hope so." "We have to be finished with this in three weeks." "Hope that actually happens." "These are to be the bedrooms, parents' room the boys' rooms, two boys, 7 and 9." "Living room and the bathroom." "And then this is the kitchen." "This is the best room because the mom's a really good cook." "We're gonna make it really beautiful with white tile floors and tiles on the countertops and there's gonna be a roof." "Here, John, come here." "A roof would definitely be good." "It's gonna be like this, but it's gonna be everywhere." "It's the only cover we have." "Nice, we're gonna be here for a while." "Where'd you get your scar?" "That one?" "A knife fight." "It was five years ago, we were really drunk and the guy went for my eye." "That's terrible." "Why?" "He missed." "The way people act around you, the way they treated you at that restaurant." "It's like they're scared of you." "They're not scared of me." "They might be scared of who I used to be." "And who is that?" "Somebody different?" "So when did you change?" "When you went into the Army?" "Yeah." "Yeah, I mean, partly yeah." "And the other part?" "I don't know, I'm still working on that." "So you used to be tough." "And maybe you still are a little bit." "You don't scare me, John." "No?" "Well, you scare me." "Don't worry about him." "John!" "What, you think you're safe in there?" "Okay." "No!" "It's all right." "Everybody understands." "What are you doing over here?" "You're missing the party." "The party's just managing fine without me." "What's wrong?" "Why are you all the way over here by yourself?" "I'm dying, John." "What?" "That's not even funny." "I'm gonna miss you." "It's almost over." "No, it's not almost over." "Yes, it is." "I leave tomorrow." "I have to go back to school." "So?" "And you." "No, and me nothing." "My commitment's up in 1 2 months." "And then I'm back." "For good." "A lot could happen in 1 2 months, John." "You don't think I know that?" "I know that." "And I'm not afraid at all." "I promise you that it'll all be over sooner than you think." "Then I'll be back for good." "You promise?" "I promise." "I'm probably gonna be out of the Army way before you're out of school." "Am I gonna be in the audience when you graduate?" "I think I might take a little longer to graduate." "Been spending so much time around your dad and I think now I want to teach special education." "You don't say." "I don't know why it's taken me so long to realize." "I mean, I've lived next to Alan my whole life" "I'm sorry, back up." "What does that have to do with my dad?" "Well, there's...." "I mean, there's an explanation for why he is the way he is." "Forget it." "Never mind." "No, no, no." "No, let's go." "Come here." "What?" "So, just, what were you saying?" "I grew up next to a kid with autism." "I have a frame of reference." "Whoa, autistic?" "You saying my dad's like Alan?" "You're saying my dad's retarded?" "No, Alan's not retarded, John." "He's autistic." "There are milder forms of it and these things go undiagnosed." "Is this what you've been doing?" "You've just been studying my dad?" "No." "How could you even say that?" "I've lived with my dad my entire life." "Put up with him my entire life." "You think I don't know that he's not normal?" "Yeah?" "You think I need you to tell me he's not normal?" "Yeah." "Hey, soldier, leaving so soon, huh?" "Here, have a beer." "It's on me." "Come on, you should drink." "It'll make you feel better." "Now's not a good time, all right?" "You sad?" "No, come on." "You just need to relax." "Come on." "Just relax a little bit." "What's going on with Savannah?" "Just leave me alone." "What's with Savannah?" "How about you get your hands off?" "Come on." "What is happening with you and Savannah--?" "Hey, man, what are you doing?" "John!" "Oh, my" " Oh, my God!" "John!" "Stop him." "What is he doing?" "Help him!" "Oh, I'm so sorry." "I don't think she's home now." "But she hasn't gone back to school yet." "She normally comes by and says goodbye before she heads back, but...." "Oh, shit, Tim." "Jesus, I'm sorry, man." "Hey, I like it." "I think it makes me look pretty tough." "I just" " I had no idea it was you back there." "Hey, it was my fault." "I don't know what I was thinking, sneaking up behind a green beret." "Hey, if you see her can you give her a message for me?" "Yeah." "Just tell her I came by and that I...." "You wanna write it down?" "Yeah." "I'll make sure she gets it." "Thank you." "Hey, Pop." "I didn't know if anyone else was coming so I made double." "No, I'll do it." "I got it, Dad." "It's okay." "I got it." "No, I'll do it." "They're clean." "I'll do it." "I'll do it." "Okay." "Looks like you're gonna have leftovers for once." "Oh, I'll have it next Sunday." "Excuse me, Pop." "Got your note." "Short, sweet, to the point." "I'm sorry." "John, I'm sorry." "I'm so sorry." "No, I'm sorry." "I didn't mean to make you feel that." "I have no idea what I'm talking about." "No business pretending I'm a doctor." "I was watching him today." "John." "Please, I'm serious." "I don't know what I'm talking about." "I really don't." "It means nothing." "Okay?" "I'm headed back to school." "And I just wanted to make sure that, you know...." "Make sure that what?" "I made you a promise, didn't I?" "Yeah." "You wrote your first note so I wrote mine." "Don't read it now." "Wait till I'm gone." "Okay." "Hey, can you--?" "You hungry?" "Yes." "Yeah?" "My dad made a little extra for you." "You know, it's Sunday." "Okay." "I can only stay a little while." "I know." "Come on." "Dear John two weeks together that's all it took." "Two weeks for me to fall in love with you." "Now we have one year apart." "But what's one year apart after two weeks like that together?" "All right, Pop." "Okay." "I gotta go." "You be good, okay?" "Okay." "So...." "We're good." "All right." "See you later." "Okay." "You made me a promise." "A promise I know you'll keep." "So I only want one more promise from you during this time we spend apart." "Tell me everything." "Write it all down, John." "Scribble it in a notebook." "Type it out, e-mail it to me I don't care, but I wanna know everything." "Then we'll be with each other all the time even if we're not with each other." "That way before we know it, I'll see you soon, then." "What's up, girls?" "Johnny!" "What up, man?" "Hey, there he is." "Look who it is." "Welcome back, John." "Look at you." "Welcome back." "Take a look at your voucher." "All right." "How was Atlantic City, man?" "No, laugh it up." "That's great." "Yeah." "That's the one thing I ask him." "I didn't say." "First time I've seen him." "Wouldn't ask if you didn't know." "How could he know?" "Don't even bother unpacking, guys." "We move out bright and early." "Enjoy." "Well, I'm excited." "Dear Savannah, I promise." "I promise I'll see you soon, then." "I promise I'll write all the time." "I promise I'll tell you everything." "Be patient with me, it may take a while for these letters to get back to you." "We've already been deployed out on a mission." "Come on, soldier, move it, move it." "Let's go!" "The problem is we can't exactly use the local postal system here." "And there's no such thing as Internet connection." "So I have to send everything from here out by airmail." "Can you get this out for me?" "Yeah." "Yeah." "Don't lose it, all right?" "Yeah, I gotcha." "Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to say exactly where here is." "All I can tell you is where we've been sent makes me miss America very much." "And the lack of anything resembling an ocean makes me miss Charleston." "And everything around me makes me miss you." "We move around a lot." "So letters tend to come late and out of order." "We may want to number our letters just so we know which order we wrote them in." "But when they do finally get here it's a good day." "Whenever they don't..." "All right, let's see here." "Not for me." "Not for me." "Not for me." "And not for me." "Figures." "...it's not." "Nothing for you either." "But I know they'll still come." "I know it." "That's right." "Letter Number 8." "Dear John, I'm back at my parents' farm for the weekend." "And they have some house guests you may know." "Savannah!" "Savannah!" "I think that horse suits you just fine." "I took Alan out riding with me today." "It was his first time on a horse." "You look good on that horse, Alan." "You've heard of horse sense, horses are somehow able to sense danger?" "Sense out evil?" "Well, I think autistic kids have that too so I had this idea." "This dream." "I wanna open up a summer camp for autistic kids." "I've never seen him act like this before." "Are you hungry?" "Where they can ride horses as much as they want." "Are you hungry?" "For once in their life, a place where they won't have to worry about a thing." "What do you think?" "Pipe dream, huh?" "No, it's not a pipe dream." "It's a perfect dream." "Erget." "Merry Christmas." "John, to a Mr. John Tyree." "Shut up, man." "Seven?" "Stop moving around." "Can I keep this one?" "Letter Number 33." "Dear Savannah, the good news is we've been sent somewhere new." "Although I can't tell you where that is either." "The bad news is, this place actually makes me miss the old place." "But it's a full moon here tonight, which makes me think of you." "Because I know that no matter what I'm doing, no matter where I am  this moon will always be the same size as yours." "Half a world away." "Dear John most nights I fall asleep worrying about you." "Wondering where you may be out there." "Not tonight." "Tonight you're here with me." "I visited your dad yesterday." "Summer's almost over and I wanted to see him before I went back to school." "I hope that's okay." "Hey." "I made you a pie." "He made me dinner." "It was Sunday so we had lasagna." "And I got him talking about his coins." "So we had plenty of conversation." "This one is kind of a cull, a coin that's in really bad shape." "Worthless to most collectors." "But not to you." "No, not to me." "What is your favorite coin?" "Out of all the coins that you have, what is your absolute favorite coin?" "Do you have one?" "'Seventy-eight Jefferson mule." "That'd be my favorite." "Definitely." "Why?" "Is it worth the most?" "Well, it's worth a lot, not the most." "But, you know...." "What's the story behind it?" "Here's one...." "So I'll ask you instead, John, wherever you may be." "Dear Savannah, only because I promised to tell you everything." "Thank you." "When I was 7 years old, I bought an ice cream cone." "On the way home, I noticed one of the pennies wasn't actually a penny." "I don't know." "I don't know." "Never seen anything like it." "Did you find this, son?" "Yeah?" "No, it's a mule." "It's a what?" "A mule." "An error coin." "Every now and then they make mistakes batch accidentally slips through, this thing head's a nickel, tail's a penny." "Mule." "Really more of a novelty than anything." "Remember the horse sense you were talking about?" "the kid found it I will buy it anyway." "Twenty bucks." "No, thank you." "Well, my dad has it too." "Now, wait a minute." "Hang on." "Let me take another look at that real quick." "John, let's go." "I'll be damned." "Do you know what this is?" "No." "Look at that." "That's your coin." "You want my advice?" "Dad to Dad?" "Keep it." "Hold on to it." "Pass it down to your son." "Let him pass it to his son and on and on, I'll tell you what 30, 40, a hundred years from now you're gonna have something worth a whole lot more than $4000." "I promise you." "Hey." "Do you want to keep it?" "Good for you." "Thank you." "Thank you." "At first I loved chasing after those mules with my father." "We finally had something to talk about." "You know, something we could do together." "But he became obsessed with them." "You know how he is." "And then I became a teenager and you know how I am." "All the way up to Wooster for another coin show." "I'm just" "No, I'm not doing that." "You're going to one every weekend now." "Oh, that's good." "I love warm milk." "That's nice." "You spend all of our money on coins." "Get a fricking fridge that works." "Eventually he stopped talking about coins with me altogether." "And when that happened we found there wasn't all that much left to talk about." "So that's the story." "I miss you so much it hurts." "Sorry, sorry." "Oh, my God." "My brother was in the towers." "I love you too, babe." "Please call me as soon as you can." "Susan." "Susan, is my dad there?" "Just calm down." "All right, fellas, here's the deal." "Requesting permission to extend my tour, sir." "Requesting permission to extend, sir." "Requesting permission to extend as well, sir." "Requesting permission to extend, sir." "Requesting permission to extend as well, sir." "Okay, guys, listen." "We're gonna get our orders from Operations on Monday." "Before we do anything rash, let's take the weekend to mull this over, all right?" "I got a wife and kids to think about." "Nobody's asking you to stay on too, captain." "Yeah, you are." "This is my team." "Where you go, I go." "Where we go, we all go." "If everyone still wants to extend on Monday, then we'll do it." "Together." "Don't get into trouble over there." "Take care of yourself." "Always." "Let's go, man." "The plane to Paris leaves in an hour." "You ready?" "Are you ready?" "It's gonna be amazing." "I can't go." "What?" "Of course you're going." "I gotta go to Charleston." "You're going to Charleston?" "Yup." "What are you, nuts?" "We got two days off, man." "By the time you fly there and back, you're gonna have like 1 8 hours." "It's 1 8 more than I had this morning." "I don't know when I'll get that again so I gotta go." "Nothing I can say to change your mind?" "Nope." "John!" "John." "John."