Later On

Colleen Guest in the Washington Times:

His name was Marine Lance Cpl. Justin Wilson – although I did not know it when his life brushed mine on March 25 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Lance Cpl. Wilson was not there in the terminal that afternoon; at age 24 and newly married, he had been killed in Afghanistan on March 22 by a roadside bomb. A coincidence of overbooked flights led our lives to intersect for perhaps an hour, one I will never forget.

I did not meet his family that day at the airport, either, although we were there together that evening at the gate, among the crowd hoping to board the oversold flight. I did not know that I had a boarding pass and they did not. I did not know they were trying to get home to hold his funeral, having journeyed to Dover, Del., to meet his casket upon its arrival from Afghanistan.

I also did not know that they already had been stuck for most of the day in another airport because of other oversold flights. But I did not need to know this to realize what they were going through as the event unfolded and to understand the larger cause for it. No matter how we as a nation have relearned the lesson forgotten during Vietnam – that our military men and women and their families deserve all the support we can give them – despite our nation’s fighting two wars in this decade, it is all too easy for most of us to live our lives without having the very great human cost of those wars ever intrude.

But it did intrude heartbreakingly that day at the airport gate. It began simply enough, with the usual call for volunteers: Anyone willing to take a later flight would receive a $500 flight voucher. Then came the announcement none of us was prepared to hear. There was, the airline representative said, a family on their way home from meeting their son’s body as it returned from Afghanistan, and they needed seats on the flight. And there they were, standing beside her, looking at us, waiting to see what we would decide. It wasn’t a hard decision for me; my plans were easily adjusted. I volunteered, as did two women whom I later learned sacrificed important personal plans.

But we three were not enough: Six were needed. So we stood there watching the family – dignified and mute, weighed with grief and fatigue – as the airline representative repeatedly called for assistance for this dead soldier’s family…

Continue reading. This to me speaks of a broken community: Americans who should see other Americans as “us” seeing them as “other” and thus not caring—even though the situation involved an American soldier who had lost his life in the service of this country and its people. What has happened to the sense of community? Why is it breaking down?

And read this comment on the story by LAW in the blog Left Face:

Today, on Facebook, I clicked on a link to this story.  The story of a family, at the worst time of their life, witnessing the true callousness of the American traveling public.  The story of the family of Lance Cpl. Justin Wilson, who had flown to the East Coast to welcome the body of their loved one at Dover.  The story of the family who were trying to get home, to bury that 24 year old, a newly wed, who had been killed in Afghanistan.  The story of the truly reprehensible conduct of a group of travelers, who sat in silence when asked to give up their seats so they could get home.   The story of the ground crew that had to beg, with tears in their voices, for 3 more people to give up their seats so the 6 members of the family, standing in front of them all with their grief apparent, could get home.

I should, I suppose, be used to this by now.  Eight years into two wars, with reports of “compassion fatigue”, with comments to letters to the editor, or articles in magazines,  that tell military families to just shut up, suck it up, quit whining, stop expecting everything for free, I should expect that the “others” won’t do the right thing in that situation.   After all, I just read a retired military officer in a respected military group publication, say just that!

But this.  This horrified me, and I don’t understand the people that could sit in silence and actually LOOK at the grieving family, who had to endure the stares and sliding sideways glances.  HOW?  HOW do Americans NOT stand up en masse and volunteer?  The author, Colleen Getz, tried to excuse the other passengers, saying they were caught off guard.  Off Guard?  Do Americans need to be prepared to do the right thing?  Are we so consumed with our own lives, so inured to the pain going on in front of us, that we just refuse to react to it?

I talked to my husband about it, and he gave me that look, and said “they don’t WANT to know.  They don’t want to see it, they don’t care anymore.”

I guess the flag waving is over, the “support the troops” yellow ribbons on the backs of cars have faded into pale cream with unreadable faint letters, the flags on the houses have become tatty and shredded and been replaced with butterfly banners – at least for them.  The them that could sit and stare at that family, stone faced, and refuse to give up their seats;  the them that get angry when another funeral procession ties up traffic; the  them that want to know why so much money is being spent on military health care, or get angry about subsidized child care.   But we , the One Percenters,   WE understand.  We are tired too, but I know that each and every one of us would have given up our seats.   Right?   I sure hope I’m right.