Soon after retirement was on holiday at a Sheraton on Fort Walton Beach, Florida gulf coast. Friday night Happy Hour with a difference - free food if buying a drink. As we were keen to save dollars, wife and I fill our boots from 1700 to 1880 when TV behind the bar shows President Reagan thanking the UK for supporting his F111s based in UK to go attack Libya. Wife and I wonder if this news may affect return home and I go to the bar and order a couple more drinks. Gent on bar stool asks the usual 'Gee are you English'; happy not to be thought Aussie, answer yes. Gent turns out to be a retired US Marine and insists (really insists) on taking us out elsewhere for a dinner. Overwhelmed by his generosity, we tried hard to hide our already full stomachs, and appeared to succeed. It was only during the meal that he discovered my Service past, and this generated more drinks. I have never experienced such open generosity, let alone for strangers, before or since. To my mind an example of the very best of American traits and based on a shared history (might call it a special relationship at a citizen level).