Off topic, but great story
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Off topic, but great story
| Tue, 11-18-2003 - 9:59am |
This will take you about 2 minutes to read. It is worth it.
The writer and his wife live in LA and both work for Uncle Sam.
A Day at Baltimore Airport
Dear Friends and Family,
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 canceled 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 a 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 canceled 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 heartfelt 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
I checked this out -- it is true -- see below for more info:
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (On Leave)
Bill


Thank you Bill and what a heartwarming story.
I did read the Urban Legends link and I had no idea extra "frequent flyer" miles could be donated to our guys and gals to get them back home.
We can always count on you for some great shares :)
Kim
What a wonderful story....
thanks for sharing that..
~t