Watch your back, Pappy.

This kid may be tracking you...
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We use many terms to describe those heroes we help lay to rest. All good words such as honor, fortitude, dignity, integrity.

When is the last time you said that about a sixteen year old?

Today.

Before we got started, pre-meeting yak time, up walks the step-son and grandson of our reason for being here today. I say it over and over, these ceremonies tend to be all the same, but totally different.

Stress, despair and sorrow do things to your head. You will be prone to say or do things that you wouldn't normally do or say. These gentlemen were wanting to know about becoming members of the Patriot Guard. Not surprising, they both have bikes, they both planned on being part of the escort. Being related to Cpl. Jones might be part of that. Totally expected, encouraged and appreciated.

But this kid, he kicked it up to another level. After the flag ceremony at the cemetery, the Patriot Guard will present the family with a plaque. It is a way for us to show our thanks to their soldier for serving our country. Right after that, there is an invocation read and given to the family also. It is not something, to this point I have ever desired to do. I can usually make it fine, up to the delivery of the flag and then I get shaky. By the time we get to that invocation......well, I can see it would be something very difficult for me to do. To read that to a grieving family......man.....I don't know. But this sixteen year old asks if he can read it. People, under stress, react differently. This is not something that many grown men will volunteer to do for a total stranger. To want to do it for your grandfather, one that is obviously very much loved and already badly missed....I wouldn't have thought anything if he hadn't been able to do it when the time came.

Not this one. This young man showed the integrity of one much older and (more?) mature. He taught me a great deal in a very short time. He took that invocation in his hand and knelt on one knee in front of his distraught grandmother. With the first word his voice broke along with all our hearts. He struggled. He wept openly and he read and presented that invocation to his grandmother. The fortitude he showed, he didn't care that all these people heard and saw him at what some would have thought of as a weak moment. He did what he said he would do.

I learned so much from that experience. I do not know if I will ever be able to do this at the funeral of a stranger. But, there are those that I may have the opportunity and honor of reading for someday. I only hope and pray that I will have this young man's strength and love to do so.

Thank you son and I really hope to see you take Pappy's job as State Captain some day.

"Who are those people?"

We've been here before...
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She came out of the side doors of the funeral home. Slight, stooped, beautiful head full of white hair. She paused her walker and raised her head and shook, startled at what she saw. Almost two dozen Patriot Guard Riders standing, about half standing perpendicular to the hearse going back about fifteen feet then lined up behind and reaching the building itself.

She saw leather adorned with many different sized and shaped and colored pins and patches. Gray hair, beards some long, some short. Some without either. Some with leather faces. Strangers mostly. Only a couple knew the man that would soon exit those doors.

I couldn't see, but I'm assuming she jumped again when as that flag-draped coffin was rolled out the door and our Road Captain firmly called us to attention and ordered "Present arms!"

I was hoping that then she was starting to see just who these people are. Veterans, mostly, combat soldiers, mostly. Men and women that refuse to allow a soldier to go on their last ride without an escort. Glad to spend time and resources to watch as a total stranger is laid to rest.

Most of the ones I've spoken and rode with seem to be loners. Only in a group when they have the opportunity permits. They come in from all over Oklahoma. Usually alone or maybe in small groups. Those folks from Texas will always be represented. Some with club patches, most without.