Rebecca Landis Hayes went to her local grocery store on Monday, parking her car in the store’s parking lot. None of that was unusual, but, today, Hayes decided to park in a reserved spot—specifically, one marked “veterans only.” While she was inside, someone saw and was apparently so incensed, that they felt like they had to let her know. So, they left this note tucked under Hayes’ windshield wiper:
While the person who left it didn’t leave any contact information, the note really struck a cord with Hayes, so she decided to dedicate a post to them on her personal Facebook page.
“I’m sorry…” wrote Hayes. “I’m sorry that you can’t see my eight years of service in the United Sates Navy. I’m sorry that your narrow misogynistic world view can’t conceive of the fact that there are female Veterans. I’m sorry that I have to explain myself to people like you. Mostly, I’m sorry that we didn’t get a chance to have this conversation face to face, and that you didn’t have the integrity and intestinal fortitude to identify yourself, qualities the military emphasizes.
“Which leads to one question, I served, did you?”
Talk about a mic drop.
[protected-iframe id=”92a3bcdaf51a0421a88243d013d0cc61-860993-100572088″ info=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Frebecca.landis.395%2Fposts%2F10208865771898071&width=500″ width=”500″ height=”734″ frameborder=”0″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no”]
Since Hayes posted her response to Facebook, it has been shared over 6,000 times.
“Feeling overwhelmed by the positive responses to my post this afternoon,” she wrote later that night. “Thank you to all my friends, family, and fellow Veterans. I truly appreciate your kind words and support. I hope my experience will help remind people that there is no ONE Veteran type.”
One thing’s for sure, if whoever wrote that note has seen Hayes’ comeback, they’ll certainly think before leaving unwanted, self-righteous notes on a stranger’s car.