[wayoverontheright]

I travel by air a lot, and last December I flew from Lynchburg to Greensboro, then to Atlanta. Upon leaving Lynchburg, knowing that I would see many military personnel in the airport, I vowed to myself that I was going to stop some soldier, any soldier, and tell him that I appreciate his service. I mentally rehearsed my words on the way to Greensboro. You will not find anyone more appreciative of their service for reasons we don't need to go into here, but suffice it to say, I was motivated.

I got to Greensboro, which was teeming that morning with military.

I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I don't know why, I'm not a shy person, it's just that I would have had to be an interruption to them, or maybe I felt I would get some sort of retort which I wouldn't understand, I simply don't know why I couldn't find the words at that time.

I went on to Atlanta and there, on an escalator going up, with service men and women beside me, above me and below me, I somehow manged to blurt out a heartfelt and simple...."please excuse me....but....I would just like to thank you for your service."

There was a moment of delay, but then a crescendo of slow developing smiles, and a heart warming volley of "you're welcome sir", and "think nothing of it, sir", and "my pleasure, sir".

The result was so self-propagating that I found it difficult to stop from there on. I thanked them in the hotel that day, and in both airports on the return to Lynchburg.

I say this because I have never SEEN anyone else do this, I have heard of people giving up first class seats, etc., but I've never seen this happening.

I truly loved this commercial, but the truth is, what is depicted in the commercial is at best not happening enough, and I'm afraid, probably not happening the way the commercial depicted it, at all. I know that a lot of people feel the same way I do about the military, but until you try to blurt those words out, it is a very difficult thing for most of us to do.

Maybe the best result of the commercial will be to give us all more confidence to thank them when we see them, because if I'm right, the commercial simply won't get the job done, our soldiers deserve a thank you which is not staged.

[doug from upland]

Great story.

[OldFriend]

I'm reading your comments, the hair is standing up on my arms, my throat is closing and tears are falling.

[KiloLima]

You have given me confidence. I was truly moved by your experience. I've met a lot of deployed soldiers via mail so far but not yet as they are returning. Same as you, I usually have no problem going up to people I want to speak to, in fact I'm more prone to do so than most but in this case I feel tongue-tied, maybe trite. But I really am thankful.

[ops33]

Actually, something like what was depicted in the commercial happened to me when I returned from the Persian Gulf War.

[Rightly Biased]

I had some of the same hard experience in just saying Thank you, I was on Ft Hood back in October and I didn't know how well I would be received,
Well I did it I was in The PX and standing by I spec4 and I just said "Thank you for your service to our country"
He looked at me kinda strange at first and then said "It has been my pleasure to serve our Country".

It was much easier after the first time and now I really don't mind telling our service people thanks. Living just outside of San Antonio I run into a lot of service men and women.

I just don't want them to think we don't care about their service. I am teaching my 3 girls the same to always thank a person in Military uniform for their service and I pray they teach their children the same.