It was great, wasn’t it?
Do you remember going to movies at the base theater, and they would play the Star Spangled Banner before the movie and everyone stood up.
I had a funny experience about thirty years ago...
Poltergeist came out in 1982, and I went to see it in a theater with a bunch of friends. Now, the movie starts out with a completely black screen, so the theater is pitch black. And long before anything shows up on the screen when the movie starts, this beautiful version of the national anthem begins at a pretty good volume.
Now, I grew up as a military brat, and had just got out of the navy a couple of years before, and my muscles started twitching.
On the bases I lived and served at, they began every movie by playing the national anthem and everyone in the theater would stand up. So here I was, completely baffled, having never done this in a civilian theater, and my knees kept trying to involuntarily straighten out and bring me to my feet!
I was just about all the way up when the screen lit up, and I could see nobody else was rising, and at that point I realized it was part of the movie...:) I am certain people would have looked at me like I was some kind of weirdo...I find it really funny to look back at that now...:)
We lived on SAC bases and the alert crews had the rear rows. It was awe inspiring to see the crews in their green flight suits at national anthem time. Goosebumps still rise over the memory.
Another awesome spectacle was when the klaxon went off during a movie. Goosebumps but for a different reason. That might have been the last time we saw each other.