|
Will Ross |
I hope that you will spare me a few minutes of your time to tell you
about something that I saw on Monday, October 27.
I had been attending a conference in Annapolis and was coming home on
Sunday. As you may recall, Los Angeles International Airport was closed
on Sunday, October 26, because of the fires that affected air traffic
control. Accordingly, my flight, and many others, were cancelled and I
wound up spending a night in Baltimore.
My story begins the next day. When I went to check in at the United
counter Monday morning I saw a lot of soldiers home from Iraq. Most were
very young and all had on their desert camouflage uniforms. This was as
change from earlier, when they had to buy civilian clothes in Kuwait to
fly home. It was a visible reminder that we are in a war. It probably
was pretty close to what train terminals were like in World War II.
Many people were stopping the troops to talk to them, asking them
questions in the Starbucks line or just saying "Welcome Home." In
addition to all the flights that had been cancelled on Sunday, the
weather was terrible in Baltimore and the flights were backed up. So,
there were a lot of unhappy people in the terminal trying to get home,
but nobody that I saw gave the soldiers a bad time.
By the afternoon, one plane to Denver had been delayed several hours.
United personnel kept asking for volunteers to give up their seats and
take another flight. They weren't getting many takers. Finally, a United
spokeswoman got on the PA and said this, "Folks. As you can see, there
are a lot of soldiers in the waiting area. They only have 14 days of
leave and we're trying to get them where they need to go without
spending any more time in an airport then they have to. We sold them all
tickets, knowing we would oversell the flight. If we can, we want to get
them all on this flight. We want all the soldiers to know that we
respect what you're doing, we are here for you and we love you."
At that, the entire terminal of cranky, tired, travel-weary people, a
cross-section of America, broke into sustained and heart-felt applause.
The soldiers looked surprised and very modest. Most of them just looked
at their boots. Many of us were wiping away tears.
And, yes, people lined up to take the later flight and all the soldiers
went to Denver on that flight.
That little moment made me proud to be an American, and also told me why
we will win this war.
If you want to send my little story on to your friends and family, feel
free. This is not some urban legend. I was there, I was part of it, I
saw it happen.
Will Ross
Administrative Judge
United States Department of Defense
|
|
|
