Photo by Bettmann/Corbis

The AARP Bulletin's "What I Really Know" column comes from our readers. Each month we solicit short personal essays on a selected topic and post some of our favorites in print and online. Below, reader Renate M. Haberpointner of Edmonds, Wash., shares what he really knows about civic duty.

The clatter of pots being clanked together echoes through the night. Loud cries follow: “Help, help! Fire, fire!” I wake with a start and hear footsteps in the courtyard.

There is no fire. The guardian of our village in Germany is signaling the approach of renegade Russian soldiers, who roam the countryside after dark. The footsteps belong to my teenage sister and her friends, who are running to hide in the woods and escape being raped.

Next, the guardian climbs the steps to the church steeple and rings the bells to alert the Russian commander at a post several miles away. When he hears the alarm, the commander has told us, he might send help.

I am 4 years old. World War II is finally over, but there is no government. The village is made up of women, children and a few old men. Nobody dares to incur the wrath of the soldiers by alerting the commander—except for the guardian, an old man who lives at the entrance to town. To my eyes, he is very tall. He always wears a blue farmer’s apron with a pocket that holds grain to feed chickens. He doesn’t talk much and doesn’t have any family left to protect. Yet every night he watches and makes lots of noise if the soldiers approach.

One night we hear a single shot. Our guardian has given his life for the community.

I never knew his name, but when I think of civic duty I see a tall, taciturn man with a blue apron. It reminds me that we need to look out for each other, no matter the cost