Welcome to Washington: DC Part 1

My plane landed in D.C. this morning amidst a grey, foggy, excuse for a beautiful day.  I walked down the airplane stairs to the tarmac and headed to the bus waiting to take us to the terminal.  As I took the escalators up towards the main terminal, I heard the very distinct sound of a brass band playing patriotic music.  How cool! I had no idea they greeted tourists so graciously here in DC.  Mexico has Mariachi bands and margaritas, Brazil has Samba dancers and caipirinhas, and in Hawaii, I hear you get lei’d.   I’m envisioning what awaits me at the top of the stairs.  Only because America has to do everything bigger and better than everybody else, I’m imagining that I’ll be handed a martini, a mistress, and then promptly asked to hand over 38.4% of what’s in my suitcase.   It is Washington, after all.  All the while being serenaded to Yankee Doodle.   I’m starting to think that maybe it would’ve behooved me to pack a little bit lighter in an effort to not to lose 38.4% of my shoe collection.  Because if they took three pairs, that would leave me with only five- which is clearly not a sufficient amount for a five day stay in the capital.

I was relieved (about being able to keep all my shoes) and a little disappointed (because having a mistress would be super cool) to find out that I was wrong.  It was a bit of a blow to the ego to find out the band was not for me. Sigh…

I had planned to write about how awesome my day was yesterday, being the last day of finals.  About how exciting it was to be done with two semesters of anesthesia school, my interactions with the snooty witch at the makeup counter, the wondrous hour spent pondering which books to buy at Barnes & Noble, and then the ensuing time spent feeling guilty for buying three books as opposed to checking them out from the library which is less than a half of mile from my house.  And of course, I was going to spend more than a deserving amount of time talking about the really cool green gorilla eraser I found at B&N.  No, I did not buy it (although I really, really, truly wanted it), with the hopes that someone will take note and remember that my birthday is coming up in a week.  Seriously- have you ever seen something cool as this??

Okay, I’m done talking about yesterday. Except for the books-I do still plan on writing about the books I bought someday.  Maybe that’s better left till after I read them….

So, we’re back to the band that is not at the airport to greet my arrival.  Turns out they were there welcoming some people who I believe are some greatest, bravest, individuals that this country has ever produced; veterans from WWII.  I came up to the bottleneck of people waving American flags and clapping along to the music while WWII vets streamed off the plane.  Some shuffled off the plane with help of a cane or in a wheelchair, but there were still many that had enough spring in their step to dance with the peppy leader of the welcoming committee who was bouncing to and fro waving her big American flag while welcoming all of these brave men.  She was an enthusiastic individual- not unlike a sprite-like-fairy-drill-sergeant.

I learned that this was part of a program organized by the American Legion called “Heroes’ Welcome Honor Flight” whose mission is to:

Every week, this organization pays for different veterans to fly to DC, arranges travel arrangements and has volunteers organizing the whole deal.  So you should probably go to their website and donate some money so they can continue doing this.  I’ve never been much of an emotional person, an exclaimer, most definitely not a clapper.  So I just stood and watched as they embarked from the plane.  Then I felt like a piece of poo and started to clap along with the music when I read a quote from Will Rogers on the back of one of the volunteers’ shirts,

I happen to love history, and am especially enamored with the WWII time period, so it is especially honoring and moving to be able to meet and see these people who gave up so much for their country.  As I watched a few African American vets get off the plane, I was struck by a sense of awe to think that these specific men went to war for a country that at that time would not even afford them the rights enjoyed by the rest of its citizens.  It also gave me a renewed sense of duty to continue being patient with the Army bureaucracy as they continue to lose my paperwork as I continue on my own journey of joining the Army Reserves as a CRNA (sorry Carol!).  In a time where it seems that the troops and veterans alike are not supported all that much, it was very encouraging to see so many random people welcoming these men like the heroes they are.

I took the above picture of the vets getting off the plane from my iPhone. Due to the glare and my obvious lack of photographic talent it happens to be a really sucky one- and for that I apologize.  I apparently am not all that smart, and didn’t realize that my regular camera was in my purse.  You could see the happiness in their faces as they saw the crowd of people waiting to greet them (well you certainly can’t from my picture- but if you were there you could’ve).

I stood there and clapped until the last one had gotten off the plane and then headed to pick up my luggage from baggage claim.  I headed outside to wait for my ride and took a big whiff of the air.  I looked around for the signs indicating which airport I was actually at, and had to check the GPS on my phone to make sure I was really in DC and not in Omaha.  Because I smelled manure- a lot of it.  Trust me, I’m a nurse.  If I say it smells like animal feces, it usually does.  And then it made sense when I realized that congress must be in session and this is what bullshit smells like.

Tagged as: Army, Travel