Radney Foster - Angel Flight

It was the summer of 2011, and I was flying to Dad's Memorial Service.  His funeral had been a few months earlier in New Mexico but now was the last gathering in my home town in Maine.  It was a circuitous route: AUS-ATL-DET-BAN.  I've flown a lot in my life, but I saw something on that Detroit tarmac that I'd never seen before or since.

Photo credit: Borepatch

I'll reproduce here what I liveblogged from my phone:

My flight to Detroit just touched down.  The flight attendants came on the PA asking everyone to remain seated when we reach the gate, so some soldiers returning back from Afghanistan could de-plane first.

Everyone clapped.  Everyone.

Then the Captain came on.  He said we were taking a fallen soldier home.  You could have heard a pin drop.

God Speed, whoever you are.  I can't imagine any thanks can possibly fill the void your family feels.

We're at the gate, and the plane is clapping for the soldiers again.  Out the window, you can see the cars lined up on the tarmac for our fallen hero.  Everyone's crowded around the windows.

It feels like you're in church - that you're in the presence of something holy.

There was a boy no older than ten a couple rows in front of me.  When he saw this, he took off his baseball cap:

Photo credit: Borepatch

All that weekend I thought on what I'd written about how hard the Honor Guard duty must be:

This must be a tough duty, spending all day, every day welcoming home fallen veterans.  It must take a special sort of personality to be continually surrounded by grieving families, and to take that grief as an inspiration to perfect the ceremony.  The respect they showed - especially to Mom - was very moving.

It's strange, but after the months leading up to Dad's death, and three weeks now to process the emotions, that I wasn't ready for what that washed over me when the guard slow-saluted Mom, and then knelt down to present her the flag.

This flag is presented on behalf of a grateful nation and the United States Army as a token of appreciation for your loved one's honorable and faithful service.

The Honor Guard has a hard duty, and one that may seem unimportant.  After all, it's just one more old man leaving his grieving family behind.  The kindness and respect they devoted speaks volumes of them, and the Republic.

This is the final test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.

- William Lyon Phelps

But on that Detroit taxiway it wasn't an old man coming home to lie with his brothers, it was someone in the flush of youth.  Someone who didn't get the chance to bury his father; on the contrary, someone whose father met him on the tarmac on his last flight.

I look on this Republic, and wonder how it can possibly live up to that sacrifice.  And then I look at that ten year old boy on the plane, just some random kid on a vacation flight, taking his cap off as a sign of respect, and thanks.  And I look at all the other passengers who would normally be crowding the aisle to get off the flying bus that brought them where they ended up.  All crowded around the windows.  I don't expect that many will ever forget that moment.

I sure won't.

Memorial Day is the traditional start of summer, celebrated with barbecues and the opening of swimming pools across the land.  But that's so, so not what the day is about.  On this holiday, think for a moment about that fallen soldier, met by his father at the end of his Angel Flight.  And think on all the other fallen and what we owe to them, a debt that can never be repaid.



Angel Flight (Songwriters: Radney Foster, Darden Smith)

All I ever wanted to do was fly
Leave this world and live in the sky
I left the C130 out of Fort Worth town
I go up some days I don't wanna come down

Well I fly that plane called the Angel Flight
Come on brother you're with me tonight
Between Heaven and earth you're never alone
On the Angel Flight
Come on brother I'm taking you home

I love my family and I love this land
But tonight this flight's for another man
We do what we do because we heard the call
Some gave a little, but he gave it all

I fly that plane called the Angel Flight
Come on brother you're with me tonight
(Come on brother you're with me tonight)
Between Heaven and earth you're never alone
On the Angel Flight
Come on brother I'm taking you home
Come on brother I'm taking you home

Well, the cockpit's quiet and the stars are bright
Feels kinda like church in here tonight
It don't matter where we touch down
On the Angel Flight its sacred ground

I fly that plane called the Angel Flight
Gotta hero riding with us tonight
Between Heaven and earth you're never alone
On the Angel Flight
Come on brother I'm taking you home
Come on brother I'm taking you home
Come on brother I'm taking you home
Come on brother I'm taking you home

Ave atque vale.  Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.  Et lux perpetua luceat eis.  Amen.