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Dear Friends and Family,

I hope that you will spare me a few minutes of your time to tell you
about something that I saw on Monday, October 27.

I had been attending a conference in Annapolis and was coming home
on Sunday. As you may recall, Los Angeles International Airport was
closed on Sunday, October 26, because of the fires that affected air
traffic control. Accordingly, my flight, and many others, were
canceled and I wound up spending a night in Baltimore.

My story begins the next day. When I went to check in at the United
counter Monday morning I saw a lot of soldiers home from Iraq. Most
were very young and all had on their desert camouflage uniforms.
This was a change from earlier, when they had to buy civilian
clothes in Kuwait to fly home. It was a visible reminder that we
are in a war. It probably was pretty close to what train
terminals were like in World War II.

Many people were stopping the troops to talk to them, asking them
questions in the Starbucks line or just saying "Welcome Home." In
addition to all the flights that had been canceled on Sunday, the
weather was terrible in Baltimore and the flights were backed up.
So, there were a lot of unhappy
people in the terminal trying to get home, but nobody that I saw
gave the soldiers a bad time.

By the afternoon, one plane to Denver had been delayed several
hours. United personnel kept asking for volunteers to give up their
seats and take another flight. They weren't getting many takers.
Finally, a United spokeswoman got on the PA and said this, "Folks.
As you can see, there are a lot of soldiers in the waiting area.
They only have 14 days of leave and we're trying to get them where
they need to go without spending any more time in an airport then
they have to. We sold them all tickets, knowing we would oversell
the flight. If we can, we want to get them all on this flight. We
want all the soldiers to know that we respect what you're doing, we
are here for you and we love you."

At that, the entire terminal of cranky, tired, travel-weary people,
a cross-section of America, broke into sustained and heartfelt
applause. The soldiers looked surprised and very modest. Most of
them just looked at their boots. Many of us were wiping away tears.
And, yes, people lined up to take the later flight and all the
soldiers went to Denver on that flight.


That little moment made me proud to be an American, and also told me
why we will win this war. If you want to send my little story on to
your friends and family, feel free. This is not some urban legend.
I was there, I was part of it, I saw it happen.


Will Ross
Administrative Judge
United States Department of Defense

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