Mondays.......

Well, it's officially Monday again. It's my day off so I'm trying to get some odds and ends finished around the house. Of course I had to start off my day by running by work and straightening up some administrative issues...off the clock of course. That's one of the few things I don't like about being a captain...strict salary. Hah. I was involved in two officer-related incidences over the weekend which I have to use my powers of administration and determine disciplinary actions as needed. One was a rather serious case of insubordination, the second was merely an accident...literally...the officer was responding to a call from yours truly and in his quick response managed to broadside a fire hydrant.

Anyways, I'm also recommending a great movie that was on HBO recently called "Taking Chance" with Kevin Bacon. It's a tearjerker. Seriously, it's the true story of Marine Lt. Col. Mike Strobl who saw that one of our fallen heroes, PFC Chance Phelps was from his hometown in Wyoming, and he volunteered to escort the fallen home. The movie shows the true nature and the protocol involved in making that last voyage home. It showed the dignity and honor that common everyday Americans have for our fallen heroes. One powerful scene was during his first layover in Minnesota where he sees another American serviceman standing on the tarmac. As he approaches, he realizes that the serviceman is escorting another hero home..only this time it is that serviceman's own brother. He describes the scene as poignant in that not only is this brother performing one final act of love, but that he maintains his strict military bearing and demeanor during the entire process.

And in conclusion, Strobl writes:
From Dover to Philadelphia; Philadelphia to Minneapolis; Minneapolis to Billings; Billings to Riverton; and Riverton to Dubois we had been together. Now, as I watched them carry him the final 15 yards, I was choking up. I felt that, as long as he was still moving, he was somehow still alive.
Then they put him down above his grave. He had stopped moving.

I left Dubois in the morning before sunrise for my long drive back to Billings. It had been my honor to take Chance Phelps to his final post. Now he was on the high ground overlooking his town.

I miss him.

Regards,LtCol Strobl.

In the end of the credits, there is a montage of home videos and photographs of Lance Corporal (posthumous) Chance Russell Phelps, and it is then that you realize that this was not fiction, that this was indeed a true American hero.