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June 3, 2003 Spring was summer wrapped in an overcoat against a chill breeze that welcomed us with a bright sun. The clumps of people in jackets and sweatshirts, many sporting a red-white-and-blue motif, were carrying signs and flags and lugging lawn chairs and children towards the school The High School provided the band and the choir and the parking lot to set up a platform. A local DJ service did the sound for free. The VFW brought the honor guard and many more flags. Hundreds of townsfolk gathered to honor “The Troops”. As veterans were called up I could not help remembering the young man in hippie’s garb who spat at my feet one day in San Francisco as I waited for a bus, clad in my uniform. I was close-cropped, close shaven, pressed and shiny. Spit hit the pavement a few inches away, but he wiped his contempt upon me with his words and the look in his eyes. It was the time of Vietnam; I was a draftee, how much difference was there really between the two of us? My anguish and confusion of those times had long since dissipated. Now I stood before my fellow Americans so very grateful that I had agreed to serve rather than run off to Canada. Had the hippie grown up, had a family………with the passage of time, did he regret spitting at a soldier? The end! We were handed bright balloons, and, wonderfully, four skydivers plunged from a small plane overhead with stars-and-stripes uniforms, the last with a large American flag attached to his rig. We chanted U-S-A over and over as the last flag-bearer seemed to hover motionless overhead before finally swooping his parasail down to the landing zone to our screams and cheers. Then we released the balloons and they soon became red and white and blue stickpins thrust into the azure corkboard of the southern sky. ------------ About the author Kimbal Ross Binder: Erstwhile gym-rat, former independent driven by disgust for the Democratic Party into the arms of the Republicans, current parent and expert at puns, jokes that make people groan and eating Debbie's cooking. Mr Binder lives out in the boondocks of NW Indiana. Email Kimbal Ross Binder: radar@eternalisp.com Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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