Flag
Line
Gill Rapoza
June 16, 2012
Yesterday I had a unique pleasure of participating in a Flag
Line at the Imperial California Airport for a fallen soldier, US Army Captain
Scott Pace. Pace lost his life in
Afghanistan when his helicopter crashed.
The thing that made this unique was that those that were on
that flag line were all strangers to Capt. Pace, and mostly to one
another. About 25 motorcycles in all
arrived in singles and in small groups.
Some had the Patriot Guard Riders
< http://patriotguard.org/>stickers
on the windshield, and most had large or at least small American flags on them
and I saw one with a US Army flag.
No one among those that showed up were asked if they were in
any particular service. It was not a
problem that those who came to stand with them did not have a motorcycle. I no longer have one but brought my old
pick-up truck. There was a man there
called “Gunny”, a long time retired US Marine gunnery sergeant and our ride
captain for this event. Gunny organized
us with the idea that we were there to both honor and respect our fallen
soldier, Capt. Pace. During the
briefing Gunny asked if there were any Viet Nam vets among us. Gunny acknowledged them and said some
important words they did not all get to hear the first time, “Welcome
home.”
We were allowed onto the tarmac to await the jet and received
our final instructions there. We said
the Pledge of Allegiance toward one of the flags, then a friend of mine who is
the chaplain for his motorcycle club prayed for us and for the event. It was just then something happened that I
have never seen before took place. A
civilian charter jet made a low pass pretty quickly over the runway. It turned, made a loop, landed and stopped
not far from us.
We made our flag line ready and waited. When the coffin was lower from the plane
Gunny called us to attention, and barked “Present Arms.” Those holding flags presented them and those
without did a hand salute. I know we
were a rag-tag looking bunch, most of us in our 50s-60s or so. But we were presenting the best honor we
had, and we did it well. It came from
the heart. We were very pleased to see
that Army provided an honor guard, and they did a good job all around.
Once the Army’s honor guard placed the casket into the
funeral car, everyone lined up their motorcycles for a final escort. A couple of pick-ups and a car took up the rear. We made a slow ride from the airport to the
funeral home in Brawley, Ca. At every
intersection there was at least one police car or motorcycle provided by the
Patriot Guard. At some intersections I
saw flags, big ones too. I saw several
people with their hands over their hearts as we passed by. I saw cars and a couple of trucks from the
local utility company that had been going the other way on the highway who had
stopped what they were doing. Some of
these took their hats off and I saw some with hands over their hearts as well.
At one intersection I saw an older man by the side of the road who stood there
in a full attention salute. As we
passed intersections I saw California Highway Patrol and local police in full
hand salute.
We pealed off in Brawley, at the funeral home and Gunny
organized another flag line there.
I had not originally intended on going all the way to Brawley,
but I did. The idea of honoring one of
our fallen all the way to the end made an impact on me. If I did not see it through I would have
missed much. I saw what real honor
looks like!
Godspeed,
Gill Rapoza
Veritas Vos Liberabit
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