From Heckles to
Halos
Since 12-24-058
From:
Waspscpo@aol.com [mailto:Waspscpo@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2005 5:35 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: From Heckles to Halos
December 24, 2005
By Faye Fiore, Times Staff Writer
From
Heckles to Halos
In dramatic contrast to the Vietnam War era, U.S. service personnel now are
being treated to strangers' spontaneous bursts of gratitude.
There's a diner called Peggy Sue's about eight miles outside of Barstow, and as
hard as Lt. Col. Kenneth Parks tries, he can never seem to pay his bill.
He orders a burger and a chocolate shake. But before he's finished, the waitress
informs him the tab has been taken care of by yet another stranger who prefers
to remain anonymous but who wants to do something for a soldier in uniform.
Many Americans have conflicted feelings about the Iraq war, but not about the
warriors. The gestures of gratitude and generosity that occur with regularity at
Peggy Sue's across Interstate 15 from Ft. Irwin, a military desert training
site have become commonplace across the United States.
A spontaneous standing ovation for a group of soldiers at Los Angeles
International Airport. Three $20 bills passed to a serviceman and his family in
a grocery store in Georgia. A first-class seat given up to a servicewoman on a
plane out of Chicago.
These bursts of goodwill have little to do with the holiday season or with
political sentiments about the war. In contrast to the hostile stares that
greeted many Vietnam veterans 40 years ago, today's soldiers are being treated
as heroes throughout the year, in red states and blue, by peace activists and
gung-ho supporters of the Iraq mission. The gestures are often spontaneous,
affiliated with no association or cause, and credit is seldom claimed.
"It makes you feel great. It may just be a burger and a shake, but it's the
thought behind it," said Parks, 41, who has served two tours in Iraq. Stationed
at Ft. Jackson, S.C., he goes to Barstow regularly for training.
"My father went over to Vietnam three times, and he felt like he was not
respected," Parks said. "Sometimes he felt like he was not even an American. But
I see a big difference. I feel we're appreciated. An airport is about the best
place for a soldier to be."
That was Sgt. Baldwin Yen's experience when he landed at LAX on Thanksgiving Day
2004. The pilot asked whether the other passengers would mind letting the
soldiers on board exit first so they could get home to their families all the
sooner. Not a passenger complained. Still in their combat fatigues, the soldiers
were assembled in a corner of the airport when a bystander began to applaud.
Soon, people were standing up and clapping in spontaneous tribute as far as Yen
could see.
"I was kind of embarrassed," said Yen, 27, of West Hollywood. As an Army
reservist who wore his uniform only infrequently until he was called to Iraq, he
was unaccustomed to such attention. "I'm a slight, Asian man 5-feet-9 and 140
pounds. People usually didn't think I looked like the military type. But then
all these people were standing up. I was touched and surprised."
This is not a nation at war so much as it is an army at war. Service members and
their families mostly bear the weight of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions alone
family separations, career dislocation and danger. Many soldiers are serving
third tours, and there is no clear end in sight.
For civilians, the chance to directly touch a military member or family can be
irresistible, so much so that people break the comfortable anonymity of public
places airports, hotels, supermarkets to walk up and pat a soldier on the
back.
"For probably the first time in American history, civilians are asked to make no
sacrifices in a time of war. We don't have a draft. There is no gas rationing
the way there was in World War II. There is no increase in taxes; we get tax
cuts instead," said Charles Moskos, a leading military sociologist at
Northwestern University. "These acts are small ways of showing some recognition,
because we're not doing it any other way."
U.S. Army Capt. Alina Martinez was in a grocery store outside Ft. Benning, Ga.,
with her soldier husband and their 3-year-old daughter last spring. Noticing the
haircut, the couple in line ahead asked whether Martinez's husband was in the
military. He answered that they both were. The couple thanked them repeatedly
for their service and left the store.
Soon afterward, the cashier handed Martinez $60 that the strangers had left for
them.
"My husband and I were shocked. He ran out to the parking lot to thank them, but
they were gone. The cashier said the couple specifically told her to wait until
they had left. They didn't want us to know," Martinez said.
"It wasn't the money; it was the fact that this couple only spoke to us for a
couple of minutes, and they were so generous and sincere," she said. "It brought
tears to my eyes right in the store."
National sentiment has come a long way since the days when Randall Rigby came
home from Vietnam and was instructed by commanding officers to change out of his
uniform before going out in public to avoid ridicule. Now a retired Army
lieutenant general, Rigby recalled the memory one recent day when he watched a
large man give up several inches of legroom in first class to a small female
soldier seated in coach.
Although the military takes pride in the family support network it has built,
spouses still rely on the kindness of civilians during the strain of separation.
Kristy Cormier traveled to Florida from her home in Georgia so her friend,
Jacqui Coffman, could run a 10K race. Both of their husbands were deployed in
Iraq, and Cormier found herself in a hotel pool in charge of their combined five
children, ranging in age from 7 months to 6 years.
The children began to play with a man splashing around with his twins; Cormier
mentioned to him that they probably missed male contact, because their fathers
were overseas.
The man "was very generous all morning, catching them in the water
. I must have
looked crazy trying to manage them all, and he helped me. It happens often,
people thanking us for our service. It's very humbling," said Cormier, 36.
Her husband, Maj. Daniel Cormier, 38, returned days ago from a year in Iraq. He
made it home in time for his son's elementary school holiday pageant, where the
teacher announced his presence, and the audience applauded.
Charitable and nonprofit organizations, in the tradition of the long-serving USO,
have burgeoned since the beginning of the war. There are websites for collecting
books to send to deployed troops (
www.booksforsoldiers.com ), and sites that offer "Take a Soldier to the
Movies" packages that include popcorn, candy, a drink and a DVD (
www.soldiertomovies.org ).
Another, ( www.fisherhouse.org ), tells
how to donate air miles to the loved ones of injured soldiers.
Donations have grown steadily. Since it was founded nearly two years ago, the
Hero Miles program has delivered nearly 175 million air miles, saving military
families an estimated $6 million in travel costs, said Jim Weiskopf, spokesman
for the Fisher House Foundation, a Maryland-based charity that supports service
members and their families.
Similarly, more than 7,000 DVD packages have been distributed to troops abroad
through Operation: Take a Soldier to the Movies. The website was created by
Bernie and Kathy Hintzke of West Allis, Wis., a year ago to help support their
son and his unit in Iraq.
But the American people have taken charity a step further, bypassing formal
groups to help or comfort a soldier or a military family directly.
Celeste Zappala's son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, 30, was killed in an explosion in
Baghdad on April 26, 2004 the first member of the Pennsylvania Army National
Guard to die in combat since 1945.
She still receives packages in the mail from strangers: quilts, religious cards,
American flag pins fashioned in the shape of teardrops.
"They come from random places, as far away as Kentucky," said Zappala, 58, who
lives in Philadelphia and is an active peace advocate. "People who just see my
name on the Internet somewhere will pick up the phone to call and tell me they
are sorry for my loss. It's really very dear."
When encountering a soldier, people often give and then move on, without leaving
so much as a name. In North Carolina, a stranger in a hunting cap instructed a
waiter to bring Capt. Jeremy Broussard, 28, anything he pleased. A couple in
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport handed Spc. Adrian Ocampo, 21, a
cellphone to call anyone he wanted.
In the Barstow area, the wave of altruism grips with equal passion at the locals
at Peggy Sue's and the high rollers who've stopped by the diner on their way to
Las Vegas.
Peggy Sue Gabler, who owns the diner with her husband, Champ, has decided it has
something to do with the opportunity to care for a soldier immediately and in
person. She still remembers the customer who picked up a bill totaling several
hundred dollars for a group of 18 GIs.
"You could pass around a tin can that says 'Aid to soldiers,' and people would
let it go by," she said. "But if a soldier orders a Philly steak, people just
want to pay for it. To be able to do something right at that moment just makes
them feel elated."
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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)