I wrote this for work after spending last week in Texas greeting the troops. It’s much more a magazine-type feature than anything I’ve written before, usually it’s all inverted pyramid. Enjoy.
(Photo: Elliot Mann) Richard Glasgow hugs a solider returning for her two weeks of rest and recuperation.
• Reporter Elliot Mann recently traveled to Dallas along with a group of St. Croix Valley residents to thank members of the armed services arriving in the U.S., as well as those departing to Iraq and Afghanistan. This account is the first in a three-part series detailing his experience.
DALLAS – In Texas, land of 10-gallon hats, jumbo-sized toast and monster trucks billed as pickups, they aren’t one to mince words.
They don’t have time for “Minnesota Nice.” They only have time for straight shootin’, callin’ it like they see it, pure unbridled honesty.
Likewise, Texans aren’t ones to hide their patriotism, typified by larger-than-life flags on nearly every business and “Don’t Mess with Texas” bumper stickers affixed to many a Ford F-150. The American pride isn’t more evident than at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, where hundreds of volunteers turn out each day to shake hands, cheer and visit with troops arriving and departing the states.
And for five days last week, four Minnesotans and the Gazette joined the collective, hoping their long “Minn-ee-soo-tahs” didn’t single them out too much among the southern drawls at the airport.
Lakeland resident Richard Glasgow, best known for creating thousands of thank you cards for veterans, led the Minnesotans. The trip was an excuse for his Dear American Hero – a non-profit group formed after Texan Ross Perot donated funds for one million of the thank you cards – to hold a board meeting. But meeting the troops was the real motivation for Glasgow and his fellow board members.
The group is a potpourri of sorts, four retired veterans – a former elevator machinist, a semi-retired salesman of hats and cowboy boots, a legendary state high school football coach and a county politician.
An energetic military wife energizes the faction. She’s best summarized by her caring nature and ability to strike up 20-minute conversations with any passing veteran, as well as her inability to recall the location of her glasses, cell phone or camera.
Later, we’re joined by another veteran, by way of Colorado Springs, Colo.
Rounding out the group is a journalist who has so little experience with the military that he has yet to even watch “Saving Private Ryan.” But the 10-second, cocktail party titles belie the true nature of each personality.
Bert Brady, the former hat and cowboy boot salesman and only Texan in our group, was named an ABC Person of the Week in 2007 for thanking U.S. troops at the airport each day. He also volunteers at the airport’s United Service Organization branch,
Glasgow, the elevator machinist, has donated thousands of dollars to mail his thank you cards around the nation.
Kim Fuhrmann, the enthusiastic wife of an Army helicopter pilot, sacrificed celebrating Valentine’s Day with her husband to shake hands and hug soldiers at the airport. During a trip last year she came across 84 active soldiers and gave them all a thank you card.
Wanda Williams, a late addition to the group, last year saw one of the thank you cards in Colorado and immediately tried to locate their Minnesota roots. She speaks to everyone as though they were high school best friends, always ending conversation with “baby” or “sugar.”
Well-known retired football coach and Stillwater school board member, George Thole, and popular Washington County politician, Gary Kriesel, thrive on their obscurity at the Texas airport. Here, their titles have been checked along with their luggage, and instead of fielding questions about school board budgets or open space initiatives, they are known as Navy vets. Minutes before 6:30 a.m., when the troops walk through the sliding opaque doors marked “International Flight Arrivals,” Kriesel and Thole compare where they were stationed and the subtleties of life on a ship with an elder Navy man from Euless, Texas.
I’m the only one who notices this – the others are busy joking and smiling with those who have lined up along the sliding opaque arrival doors. In a few minutes, the group numbers into triple digits, spotlighted by a few Dallas residents who excitedly wait for their sons, husbands, daughters and friends, tears and smiles unable to hide their excitement. Then, the doors open, a small radio blares out a rendition of “Stars and Stripes Forever” and the crowd emits enthusiastic cheers.
“It’s like a pep rally,” said Brady, who has turned out more than 600 times. “(The troops) have no clue that people are behind those doors.”
The mood is jovial as the soldiers take some of their first steps back on American soil, where they can walk for more than two minutes without having to worry about 140-degree sand melting their boots. Emotions run high on both sides of the hugs and handshakes.
“It’s hard not to tear up when you see some of the guys who light up like a Christmas tree,” Kriesel said.
