Better than a yellow ribbon

Maine is awesome.

Remember that commercial that ran during Super Bowl this year where a crowd of people in an airport starts applauding for a group of soldiers who are exiting their plane? I saw that exact scene recreated in the Bangor Airport earlier today (I was up in Maine for my high school reunion). My mom dropped me off at quarter of seven and as I made my way up the escalator to the security gate I saw several men in fatigues descending the stairs. I smiled and gave a nod to one of them as I passed by. I got upstairs and the security checkpoint for my gate hadn't opened yet (less than an hour before my flight was scheduled to take off mind you) so I just kind of hung back to wait and that's when I noticed the wave of camouflage coming toward me. Soldier after soldier came pouring out of the international arrivals terminal. Greeting them as they came were a group of maybe ten Mainers. They were shaking the hands of every soldier that came through the exit, saying good morning, thanks for your service, thank you for coming and God bless you. With time to kill before they opened up my gate, I joined the greeters - most of whom didn't appear to have any bags with them, but had apparently shown up at the Bangor Airport for the sole purpose of welcoming this battalion of troops to Maine - and I shook the hands of dozens of troops, thanking them as they came through.

It was a cool moment, though as our little line shook hands with the lo-o-o-o-ng line of soldiers, I started to laugh because it kind of reminded me of the lines we used to form after every baseball game in Little League where the two teams walk past each other, shaking hands saying, "Good game, good game, good game." At one point, I thought I'd be funny and said that to a cluster of the guys coming through, eliciting a small laugh. After about five minutes, the wave of khaki green broke for a few seconds and I slipped away to write this blog. But still the wave kept coming. Just kept coming. For perhaps fifteen straight minutes this small army kept on flooding out of the gates. And for that entire time, these Mainers, several of whom wore veteran hats, stood there and shook their hands. And as the wave trickled down to the final few soldiers, the whole group started clapping, and several others in the terminal joined in.

While I waited for my gate to open, all the soldiers, who outnumbered the civilians in the terminal 10 to 1, milled around making phone calls, taking pictures, browsing through the gift shops and talking to anybody who stopped to shake their hands. One old lady sitting near me asked a particularly young looking man in uniform where they were headed. He told them that they were an aviation squadron out of Texas and were on their way to Iraq. The lady gasped at that news, saying, "Oh my," and then asked him if he wanted to go.

With all the confidence and dignity that comes with wearing his uniform, the soldier responded, "Oh yes, I can't wait."

I wonder if this scene could have happened anywhere but in a small airport like Bangor. In big city airports like Philadelphia, would the people in town even know when a battalion of soldiers would be arriving? If so, would they have the motivation to show up at the airport to greet them? Would there even be a place to await them as they exited the plane. And would anybody in a big city have courage and/or compassion to not only shake the hands of every single soldier who came off the plane, but then start applauding in the hopes that others around them would join in. Somehow I don't think so. I don't think that's necessarily sad or indicates anything bad about the people who live in our cities since we're all encouraged to never make eye contact, much less interact with people or draw undue attention to yourself. So I don't think it makes these people or places bad.

It just makes Maine awesome.

(and the troops even moreso)