1st Lt. Walton Dabney, USAF

I'm not sure how the military decides these things, but Walton certainly defines "an officer and a gentleman" for me.  He and his wife Elaine (who met him in college when they were both studying fencing) arrived at my house on New Year's Eve, stopped for this brief photo op, and swept me off to an evening of Beethoven and champagne at Seattle's Benaroya Hall.   We discovered an unexpected intersection of my Italian history and Walton's military interests, and in March  we went off to Discovery Park to see the grave of an Italian POW who died there during WWII.   In April, serendipity took us to Tacoma's Museum of Glass, where I fell in love with a new craft!.   In August 2008, in Indianapolis. Walton had textbooks and a school, but he and Elaine were still living in a hotel and looking for housing, so we settled for drinks at the bar. Our most recent meeting was right after New Year's, I think, when he and Elaine were in town for a brief stop.

2011 Update: Walton is about to graduate, and finds that his future looks a bit different than he anticipated: He wrote, "I'm a fan of unions now. Those ivory tower liberals corrupt yet another soul!"

He has also fallen in love with litigation, so we have one more thing in common.

"I took one course called trial advocacy, where we met at the county seat on a saturday and basically conducted mock trials all semester long, culminating in a mock felony murder case presided over by real state and federal judges, with real (albeit volunteer) juries. It was the best academic experience of my entire life."

Walton will continue his military service as a JAG officer, then plans to continue in litigation. I hope our paths cross again, so I can show him some of my blown-glass treasures.