An Honorable Welcome

This past Saturday my whole family went to the airport to pick up my grandpa from the airport. He finally got the chance to participate in Honor Flight Twin Cities. It’s a one day trip for World War II, Korean, and Vietnam veterans to see the memorials that are in Washington DC in their honor. Many of my family members went to the airport last weekend to welcome him home from the trip. It was a wonderful evening with fun surprises!

And what a trip it was!

My grandpa, and my great-uncle, who accompanied him on the trip, flew out of the airport at 6:00 in the morning. They got to Washington DC and got to see many of the famous war memorials that were made to honor our veterans. They walked around DC with others on the trip and got to see a lot of stuff as a whole, including the Airforce Memorial, Iwa Jima Memorial, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and Washington Monument.

We got to the airport that evening to welcome him home and immediately saw a whole crowd of other vet’s family members, current servicemen, and women, a bagpipe group, as well as a U of M band and even Klondike Kate (of the St. Paul Winter Carnival). We lined the walkway from the place that they exited the concourse. All the vets were welcomed home with music, flags and cheering. We immediately headed downstairs to have more room for our whole family to gather with my grandpa and another family friend who was also a veteran on the trip.

We took tons of pictures, we asked my grandpa about what he thought of the trip and what he liked about it.

Later I saw a friend I knew from swing dancing who was one of the current servicemen in attendance. I mentioned it to my mom and she agreed that it would be a good idea to thank him for being there for my grandpa and the other veterans since I recognized him. Keep in mind it kept coming to mind because the band was playing big band tunes.

I headed over and tapped his shoulder. He was surprised, to say the least. I then thanked him for being there, he quickly told me that he had been wondering if there were any other swing dancers there, in his words: “there’s no rule against dancing in uniform”. So I promptly mentioned I was on board if he was if the next song was swing music. Low and behold the next thing we hear is the first notes of “Sing, Sing, Sing” a swing dance staple. I look at him for the “go-ahead” and we decide to go for it. I throw my purse off to the side and we’re off. Luckily there was a little space already and as we started dancing the crowd backed up. We were going so fast and it was so fun, but I had never “performed” in front of people this way before so I got nervous about my dancing. All of a sudden there were tons of people taking pictures, including my family I found out later.

My great-uncle caught a few moments:

After finishing I grab my stuff and headed back to my family and friends, they promptly mentioned that they “didn’t know I could do that!” and were wondering how I knew the gentleman I danced with. It was fun to explain the exchange and know that they finally have seen for themselves one of my passions in action for a noble event. They also assured me that it didn’t take away from honoring the vets, in fact most of them thought it added to the event in a great way!

Thanks to all my family and friends who came, my great-uncle Ken for taking him, the Honor Flight organization that puts this together, and to my grandpa for serving all those years ago.

God Bless America!