"... and the Home of the Brave !"

Some of America “Gets’-It”




FWIW :



I’d like to tell you about an Experience I recently had at the Dallas / Ft. Worth Airport terminal. I had finally, after an extremely grueling year and a half of being unemployed & looking for a decent job, I went to a week of a very intense Company Sales Training Program at the American Airlines Training Center in the Dallas Texas area for the Company that had hired me.



The Plane ride there started out as expected and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I had a “window” seat … I was equally or moreso disappointed to find out that 32A on this flight meant looking through a window only to see the skin of the Jet-Engine that was to be less than 36” from my left ear all flight, after all my seat did NOT recline and I was up against the bathroom wall. As I looked at the skin of the engine housing I could see that over time there was a fairly wide “gap” in the metal and the small sheet metal screw heads were bulging up and had been painted over by a 3rd grade class with a thick gooey paint. I snapped a pic with my phone camera so at least there would be SOME evidence at the scene of the crash ! The ride to the AA training center was just short of a ride at an amusement park… the shuttle bus driver was thinking he was at NASCAR event and was behind …



The training was very intense, almost a “boot-camp” of sorts…but I was there to learn, and that I did as well as I could. The facility is used to train many different companies and many different nationalities. There were many Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, guys with turbans on their heads, There was Spanish, French and Louisiana speak all around. … it was truly a loud experiment in a cultural sense just sitting in the cafeteria at lunch time was as loud as that darned jet engine.



At the conclusion of our training we all went our separate ways to various shuttles and flights to head home. Once I had received my boarding pass after having cleared the TSA, I set out for the train / shuttle to my Airline area, I had temporarily put the pass in my lips as I was holding a very heavy briefcase and Duffle-Bag fully loaded. As I pulled the pass out I felt the sharp pain on my lip … the pass had sucked out the moisture on my lip and I had pulled the skin off of it. I tried to place my water bottle to my lip and blood was dripping by now. DOH ! After walking the entire length of the Dallas airport it is very obvious why everyone else had this little rectangle flight suitcases with the folding handle and WHEELS !



So let me get to the point of my writing about this … Generally speaking, when I see a person dressed in Military uniform, I simply look them straight in the eyes and say a pleasant “Thank-You” … it is the least I can do … I thought it was probably unusual to have repeated this phrase almost 15 times or so by the time I reached my gate of departure. When the time came to board, the speaker crackled out something about first class passengers could start lining up … then an interesting thing happened … The female announcer said something like “ We have several of our Military with US today, that are returning home from their service in Afghanistan and Iraq, we would like to let them on first.” The entire group of people separated like in a movie, the First Class customers moved over and about 20 Young Men and one Young Woman all in uniform, started for the gate / ramp … there was an extreme muting of speaking and almost As in a surreal scene, everyone raised their hands and started clapping. It was not a muted clapping but a loud sincere clapping. It was a very moving experience. We quietly boarded the plane. On our final descent for Sky-Harbor Airport in Phoenix, the crackling came across the loudspeakers, that we were in final approach and, we’d like to recognize the returning military aboard this flight that are with US… The entire cabin broke into applause …



God bless those brave young Men & Women and that serve this Great Country & God Bless America.



By : Dan Rose



05/06/2011