When the kid next door comes marching home

Oringinally published

Rock Island Argus

Moline Dispatch

May 19, 2011

I didn't mind playing for Navy ship arrivals. Of course, I would have preferred to spend the afternoon in the band's rehearsal hall, catching up on paperwork or working on a new march, but, given that Navy musicians have to earn their way, just like the quartermasters and gunner's mates, a ship arrival was cake, a skate job:

Form up on the pier. Play a few Sousa marches and "Home, Sweet Home" for the crowd of wives and children awaiting the husbands and dads they haven't seen in months. Play "Anchors Aweigh" as the ship docks and a few more ditties as the crew stampedes down the gangplank. Put the clarinets back in the cases, drive back to base and get on with the day's paperwork.

This afternoon, my neighbor, Cody Brown, an Illinois National Guardsman, returned with his unit from a tour in the Middle East. I've watched Cody grow up from a junior high kid to a high school football player to a 10-foot-tall soldier.

Aledo, Illinois, is a small town, so when a Guard unit comes home, it's a big deal. We gather in the downtown park long before they're expected to arrive. They're traveling in a caravan, so people with cell phones spread up-to-the-minute misinformation about the motorcade's progress through nearby towns:

"They just left Viola."

"They just arrived in Viola."

"Anybody know if they've reached Viola yet?"

Eventually, a distant siren wails. Far-off flashing headlights draw us to the roadside to watch the caravan of fire trucks, motorcycles, cars and pickups deliver our sons, fathers, sisters and neighbors. We cheer as they drive by, old vets salute the passing colors. The rolling parade turns into the parking lot and the soldiers pile out of pickups and SUVs. We greet them, shake their hands, hug them, take their pictures.

And we cry. At least some of us do; I won't mention any names because I don't want to embarrass me in print.

Oh, it would have been great to have a band, too. But we're not a big city surrounded by military installations. We're big hearts surrounded by cornfields. And because I was one of the crowd, instead of one of the tuba players, for the first time, I got to see what it means when Johnny comes marching home, whether on foot, on an aircraft carrier or in the bed of a Ford pickup.

All those long-ago concerts I played at ship arrivals were for strangers. I knew they were significant moments, but, somehow, I didn't really know.

Now I know.

We grow. Certainly, Cody Brown has grown, from a teenaged football player who once earned the applause of his fans to a man who has now earned the respect of his country.

But I have grown, too, at least in my understanding. Those guys in the fire trucks were volunteers. The motorcycle honor guard was a group of everyday Americans who believe soldiers deserve honor and give up their weekends to make that honor real. No one in that parking lot came out of obligation. We were there because we needed to be there. The only guy on duty was the town cop, and if it hadn't been his shift, he would have come anyway.

Certainly, every soldier deserves to come home to the fanfare of trumpets and piccolos, but we don't have military bands in every country hamlet.

What we have is big hearts. Today, that was enough.

I'm not as tall as Cody Brown, and I'm three times his age.

But I'm still undergoing growth spurts.

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Copyright 2011 Frank Mullen III