Veteran's Day 2011

Long weekend…Veteran’s Day festivities at work, a PGR mission on Friday, and 2^nd half of the mission on Saturday morning. Standing a flag line gives you lots of time to think about stuff. I did some thinking.

What kind of person decides to join the military? What makes one willing to leave everything that they love and hold dear to go half way around the world and fight for a bunch of strangers? What makes somebody willing to give their lives defending us?

For many people, it was a family thing. Generations of young men followed in their father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, and enlisted in the military. Remember Lt Dan in ‘Forrest Gump’? Then there was the draft. If your number came up, then away you went. Heck, I remember when I was a kid; many a wayward young man was given a choice…jail or the military.

So what drove this young man, 1Lt Dustin Vincent, choose to serve our country? As I understand it, he had lots of reasons NOT to put himself in harm’s way. A new bride, married just 2 days before he deployed; an instant family, when he adopted his wife’s daughter. He studied engineering at UT-Arlington. He had his whole life ahead of him, full of possibilities. Yet he decided to join the Army, to stand the gap for his country.

Lt Vincent was killed in Iraq, and he was brought home this week. At the request of his family, the PGR was in attendance to honor him. The mission was a 3-parter. Riders provided escort from DFW to the funeral home on Thursday. I was in attendance on Friday evening for visitation, and I also was there for his service and burial on Saturday.

Like I said, standing a flag line gives you lots of time to think. It’s not hard work, unless the weather doesn’t cooperate, but on Saturday morning, it wasn’t an issue. A little wind, but nothing really difficult. Warm and sunny day. Great for just about any outdoor activity. We had somewhere between 20-30 bikes, riders of all ages and backgrounds came out in support. As I stood the line, I thought about what made this young man so full of potential trade it for a rifle and a good chance at having to sacrifice everything. I don’t know. I am glad that he did. Cars drove by the funeral home, and, upon seeing the flags, slowed down to a crawl. Many waved, many gave thumbs up. Nobody sped by. I actually heard car stereos being turned down as cars drove by. Seems that most of those people cared. Occasionally, I look at what’s going on in this mean old world, and I wonder if people really do care…about anything. As I watched the cars and drivers react to the site of all the flags and riders standing a post, I realized that many people do care.

Now we as a country have problems. We all know what kind of troubles we as a nation are experiencing right now. But let me be clear, if you want to point fingers and lay blame, go somewhere else to do it. This post is not the place. The point I want to make is that as long as people still care, then we have hope. When people turn out to honor a stranger, a fallen hero that we know little about other than he died fighting for us, there is hope. When people take a moment from their overly-busy lives to slow down and show a bit of respect the funeral of a soldier, there’s hope. When people stop and wait patiently as a fairly long procession to pass, there’s hope. And one of the ultimate signs, we had 2 10-year-old riders with us on Saturday. We actually have a young man that rides regularly with his grand father on missions. This kid’s mission total dwarfs mine! When kids that young can begin to understand what we do and why we do it, there’s hope.

So on Veteran’s Day weekend, when we celebrate the sacrifices made by our warriors, past and present, remember that there is hope. If we can put aside our differences long enough to realize that we are much more alike than we are different, we’ll be fine. We sink or swim together. Lots going on out there, boys and girls, and we are all we’ve got.

It’s been a long weekend, and Oz is tired. Sleep well, take care of one another.