Supporting the Troops

As noted in this previous post, The Moving Wall made a stop here in Central NH this Memorial Day weekend. Following up our MTNP radio interview (podcast here) with one of the event’s organizers, David Dube, we got to meet him face to face when we paid a visit Sunday evening. During our brief chat, he noted that over 20,000 people will have visited by the time it’s all said and done today at 6PM. More importantly, he told us that a large number of vets had made connections with those listed on the memorial which, he said in some cases can bring a degree of healing to decades-long scars. We personally witnessed the outpouring of emotion displayed by one of the visitors while we were there.

Here are a few more pics:

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Imagine my surprise when I flipped on NewsNine WMUR TV Sunday morning to have to watch reporting on the antiwar protesters gathered in Concord, and hear that there were no counterprotesters on the scene because, well, it’s just not true. Sorry Newsnine, you really blew this one! Our friend Blue Star Mother Sue Peterson sent the following pics and notes:

Doug – Here are some of the pictures..as soon as I get the rest, I will send them to you.  FYI – The one with us behind the flag – shows Denise holding the boots – they are the ones that she picked up from the sidewalk – the sidewalk was lined again with the boots and the soldier’s names attached.  We had 4 Gold Star Moms with us yesterday….Jeb Bradley…Grant Bosse….and several Blue Star Moms and a few vets…It was a great time – and I am so thankful for those that were there….

Blessings,

Sue 

This was the very last picture – so there were 8 people that had left…Also, the white tag that Lynn is holding is her son Matt Stanley’s name – she took it off the boots and threw them out in the snow.
 
We need to help educate the people of NH as to what these peace people do…they line them with shoes to represent the dead Iraqis – and when I asked "you mean those killed by Saddam," they could not answer me… they just want to make our soldiers look like baby killers.

More pics:

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It’s not about right or wrong, but how we treat soldiers

I am a pilot (first officer) for Continental Airlines and just recently had an event happen during one of my flights that I felt should be shared. I just had the honor and privilege of flying a fallen soldier flight on Flight 15 from Newark to Honolulu last Wednesday, Nov. 21. I had heard about these fallen soldier flights and knew we did them but I had no idea how intense and emotional it would be when and if it was my turn. Add to the intensity was the fact that one brother was escorting his deceased brother back home. They were from the little island of Pago Pago, and the young man that was killed was just doing the sergeant major a favor when he went on the patrol he was killed on. He was supposed to just be the driver for the top sergeant. I know they probably left their little island paradise to see the world, and likely the only way they could afford to, so they signed up. I’m guessing they still would have done so had they truly suspected the outcome, the perception of immortality as a young man is very powerful as I recall.

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The deceased soldier, a sergeant, was escorted by his real brother and active duty army specialist 5, and also a fellow Afghanistan campaign veteran. The young man was killed in Afghanistan when he stepped on an IED, probably sometime close to Veterans Day. His remains were non-viewable. The boys were on their way back home to an island wide and well deserved hero’s welcome.

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Captain Mike Montgomery, also a veteran, and I saluted the casket aboard our 767-400 for the 11-hour flight. The ceremony happened at gate C138 and in front of the huge windows of terminal C. There was standing room only in the windows and three people deep as we rode the cargo carrier up the 15 feet to bring the soldier aboard. We rode up the carrier elevator at "present arms" and held the salute until the casket was in the hold. The ceremony of bringing the body aboard was a significant and sobering event for me. I felt pride, honor and a deep sadness at the same time as I reflected on all the guys I knew personally who were killed in this war, the last one, and the one before that. Eleven hours later, my landing in Honolulu was the best I have ever done in the 767-400. I think the airplane knew we had extra precious cargo aboard as well.

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Growing up in the  small city of Dover, N.H. scarcely ten years after WWII had ended we youngsters saw daily evidence of  what happens in war. On the corner of Washington St. and Central Ave. a young man who  had lost both legs in the war sat on a wheeled platform barely three inches off the sidewalk and sold pencils for a living.  He was part of the landscape of my childhood with the full significance of his sacrifice not understood by my young mind but fifty years later as I recall the overwhelming loss that man endured and how it must have changed the course of his life it hits me. Writing this it chokes me up because now I understand the courage it took him to face his life on a day to day basis. He sacrificed his legs so that kids like me could hula hoop and rock and roll without fear.

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Back then Veterans Day was marked for us kids by a day off school and a parade. The nuns at St. Mary’s taught us the history of the day with the fact about the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month fascinating me. There was a certain calming neatness to those numbers that ended that awful "war to end all wars".

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Over the following years with one thing after another effecting it Veterans Day seemed to fade somewhat in significance and I, like so many others, treated it as just another day. Oh, I gave some thought to the men who fought, after all my father was one of them and my son was on active duty but considering the world’s makeup at the time , with the military being reduced and all ,the day passed with just a small tilt of the head. If you can think about holidays as colors Veteran’s Day would be gray. Maybe because its in the cold, gray month of November but it doesn’t have the same pizzazz or the color of, say July 4th or Memorial day, with their cookouts and fireworks.

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And, maybe, given the solemnity of the day that’s just how it should be.

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The complacency that had returned after 9/11 ended abruptly for my family in June two years ago when my son, Dan Healy was shot down in a helicopter by the Taliban and Al Quada while on a rescue mission.  Even writing this today, typing those words,  it seems surreal. How did a youngster from a little town in New England like Exeter ever end up in the mountains of an exotic, foreign country like Afghanistan? Simple. He joined the Navy and became a Navy SEAL. Then the bad guys – as he called them-blew up two buildings in NY.

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VETERANS day WEEKEND 3 GUN benefit SHOOT
Co-hosted by Major Waldron Sportsmen’s Association and
Pioneer Sportsmen Club
HELP US SUPPORT
New Hampshire Military and Their Families
ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE CHAPLAIN EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND

• SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10 – action SHOTGUN AND RIFLE competition
  MAJOR WALDRON Sportsmen’s ASSOCIATION BARRINGTON, nh

• SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – idpa/steels handgun competition
  Pioneer sportsmen Club, Dunbarton, NH

It remains as shocking today as when I first learned that when our National Guard and Reserve members are activated for deployment their families are often forced into the additional sacrifice of trying to maintain their daily routines but on the significantly lower income of military pay.  Increased heating cost, emergency repairs for homes or autos – handling such issues alone, absent the support of a deployed spouse is one thing.  Attempting to manage on significantly less income because the spouse is fulfilling their military service obligation to our country is a sacrifice our service families should not have to make.  It is unconscionable that no form of relief exists except for private donations through private charitable organizations such as the CHAPLAIN EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND. 

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