Posted on 08/30/2010 6:49:05 AM PDT by paterfamilias
It was a great day.
First of all, I'm no expert at crowd estimates, but one thing to bear in mind when looking at the aerial photos is that under the dense trees all along the reflecting pool, there were wall-to-wall people sitting in the shade; if you wanted to go to the head (the portable johns were along the walkway), you needed to pick your way through the densely packed crowd. None of those people are visible from the aerial photos.
Here's a capsule of the crowd:
A young couple from Pittsburgh behind us with their 4 well-behaved kids (about 10-3 years old), home schooled, he a 6-year Army vet.
People in front of us from Florida, their 26 year-old daughter made bracelets to commemorate the event, which she was selling to raise money for the Special Ops Warrior Fund (my wife bought two); she and her friend were selected at random to have breakfast with Glenn Beck, Alveda King, Sarah Palin and some of the other speakers. They could hardly contain themselves as they talked about their experience.
Another group of people from Florida (near Pensacola) whose son was our son's class at the Naval Academy, now a P-3 pilot based in Florida.
I met a 30-ish guy on the Port-a-San line who walked with a cane: he took AmTrak all the way from Oregon to get to the event.
As the event was starting, a guy was walking through the crowd handing out freebies: in one hand, he had pocket Constitution booklets; in the other hand, he had a roll of trash bags. I believe that we left the National Mall cleaner than when we arrived.
And for the rally:
Many poignant moments - the mother of the KIA Air Force Special Ops officer told her story, and the story of the wife and son he left behind.
During the Merit Medal ceremony, the man handing out the medals to the honored recipients was a man who HAD NO HANDS - he is a Marine vet who lost his hands in a IED explosion, after his recovery, he continued to teach martial arts in the Marine Corps, and there he was, gently placing those medals on the recipients using his two hooks!
Then there was Glenn reading the words of the Gettysburg Address, which sent chills down my spine.
However, one of the best moments for me was when Glenn told the story of John Newton who was a slave ship captain, and who found religious conversion after surviving a tempest at sea: He wrote the words to a song that, as Glenn put it, is the best song ever to be played on bagpipes: "Amazing Grace."
What happened next was inspirational: pipers came out, began to play Amazing Grace, and the crowd immediately started to pick up the tune. But then, a singer came to the microphone, and with him, the crowd really started to sing - figure 300,000 people singing a hymn of redemption on the National Mall, 300,000 people surrounded by monuments to our greatest founders, and to the patriots who have fought in wars from WW2, Korea, Viet Nam.
It was a moment that I will never forget.
On Sunday morning, after early Mass, my wife and I met our daughter (she is a med student it USUHS; she took us for tour of the small medical museum at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. There, among other things, they have an exhibit of warrior art that commemorates the service and sacrifice of our heroes in uniform - powwerful, powerful art, much of which has been created by combat doctors and medics.
What a weekend!
I agree! It was a special day. I, too, met people from all over & many of them were black. One was running for Congress.
Wish I would have seen the girls w/ the bracelets. That would have made a nice keepsake.
Beautiful post. Thank you for writing it.
My dad, sister and nephew went.
Dad said when they got there (ahead of start), they had to sit in the large lawn area off to the south of the Reflecting Pool area (i.e., south of those tree lines). Then he said when they looked back later (and when they had to leave - bus wanted to leave before event officially ended), it was crowded up to the crest of the Washington Mon. hill.
Glad all you could go.
Thank you for your report.
Gave me chills to read it.
This brings tears to my eyes. Thank you for your report!
This was the typical tea party crowd... very respectful, law abiding and well behaved crowd. We had a great time and everybody was pleasant, outgoing and of course... humorous! We always have a great time at these events....
Thanks for attending the event and for sharing your story.
Wow! I heard the bagpipe Amazing Grace on the Facebook live stream, but you explained so beautifully how wonderful it must have been to be there.
They had previously been trashing Beck.
They're probably still liberals, but to a much lesser extent.
Saw the CNN coverage yesterday. Could have sworn they were
covering a KKK rally.
God bless you for being there. My wife and I watched it on C-SPAN and it was great. I watched some of the Al Sharpton event and it was stunning to note the difference in content, tone and audience enthusiasm.
even this AM CNN and MSNBC were follwoing the meme.
FNC was VERY disappointing as they were repoting sharpton’s nothing rally as equal to becks mega rally.
BTW do we have an official REAL number? not cbs’ 87,000 before the rally started number.
Yeah, but how many fights, arrests and racial epithets? s/
I was there also. And you are spot on with your “under the trees” point. That was valuable real estate!
Also, regarding the porta-potties...there seemed to be plenty of them with 20-30-40 of them lined up at a time.
What I noticed about them was they were usually placed in a line along a pathway/sidewalk. There were always lines of folks waiting, with a line forming in front of each potty. They waiters had to start their line across the sidewalk to allow the thru traffic to get by thereby creating a gap of 5-7 feet between the “next in line” and the potty door. When the person in the potty exited, it was up to the next person in line to negotiate the considerable crossflow of passersby to get into the potty. It was a great opportunity for a passerby to deftly slip into the “open” potty....thereby jumping line. Somebody of less than honorable intentions could’ve taken advantage of the situation, and upset a lot of people. I’m sure a person with an “entitlement mentality” would’ve felt they had the right to jump the line.
BUT, I never saw it happen! (I visited the potties several times that day).
Well, the ground was uneven enough that some of the potties seemed to be on rockers!
When I got in and shifted my weight as I turned to secure the door, it started to rock, and then quickly settled down. When I came out, the next man in line was outside steadying it for me!
Nice man. Typical of the people there.
I was bawling my eyes out just watching “Amazing Grace” at home. It was absolutely beautiful.
Regards,
TS
A friend of mine who took the Metro to get back to Union Station to catch our bus said that, after the event, everyone in her car spontaneously broke out singing “God bless America.” She caught it on her cellphone and played it for us, and we all choked up.
What happened on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was truly inspiring; what happened out among the hundreds of thousands who came was the true power of the spirit- and the real significance of the event.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.