"SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" BANNER
October 7, 2007
Delmont Pennsylvania is a small town located 26 miles east of Pittsburgh, but the small is growing with more and more of the population moving away from the city each year. This is where the Delmont Apple ‘N Arts Festival is held every year. The temperature hovered around 88 degrees today; an unusually hot day for October, but a nice reprieve anyway you look at it.
The famous Delmont apple cider is made with a huge barn filling contraption that was made in 1907, which makes it one hundred years old this year. The quality and taste of it in the cider world would be comparable to Château Margaux in the French wine world. Once you have experienced it, there is no other.
Last week while attending the Derry “Railroad Days” I went to an Indiana Pennsylvania restaurant for dinner. While there, I saw a banner that was hanging on the wall, and today I took it to the apple festival. The banner “Support Our Troops” attracted such a crowd, with so many people signing their best wishes to the troops, which filled the banner from corner to corner with the names of so many. I met many supportive folks that were honored to send their good thoughts and best wishes to Our Boys Over There. A woman, who was last to sign the banner, had passed by a few times before doing so, she had tears in her eyes as she passed by, but she finally stopped. Christine looked me directly in the eye and said, “My husband was killed in Iraq. I want to sign this.”
To the viewer of the nightly news, hearing of troops being killed that day is just a number, as the seer just continues on with whatever he or she was doing. It is not so easy when a real person looks you in the eye, and then tells you that another breathing and living human being that they loved was killed on your behalf. This contact became even closer when she told me that he was stationed at Fort Carson, which is where I shot the Cavalry charge image that is on the bottom of this site on this date. As we talked I learned that her husband, Micheal Dooley, was at the parade grounds on Fort Carson Colorado where I shot the image, at the time that I shot it. He was one of the soldiers in the 3rd ACR (Armor Cavalry Unit), one of the units that I captured on film that day. Her husband and I shared a place in time and space. The news was not of some stranger who is surreal, but for me it was someone that I captured on film, and now in my heart.
The day was a wonderful afternoon for thousands of folks basking in the sun, and basking in freedom, due to the sacrifice by a few for the many.
Henry Hill, Plum Pennsylvania
(Click on images to enlarge)
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