A Parade of One

Krayton Kerns
7.09.08 

Sometimes something is made very big by making it very small; such was one fleeting moment of patriotism in the Laurel Fourth of July Parade.  Unfortunately it was towards the end and only a few parade viewers witnessed the happening, so let me tell you the story.    

My float was the typical political entry you see every campaign year.  Attorney General candidate Tim Fox and I stapled our yard signs to my hay wagon and solicited a few friends to help us toss out candy, not-quite-frozen Otter-Pops, and flags.  But this year, one volunteer made things different. 

Walking along with us in the one-hundred degree heat, in full dress uniform, was hometown Marine Lance Corporal Mark Voss.  In high school, Mark was a Locomotive football teammate with my son Tyler.  Mark is home on leave so it wasn’t surprising to see him show up for dinner Sunday evening, so we coaxed him to help us in the parade. 

While the rest of us trotted up and the down the parade route tossing goodies, Mark quietly walked along and handed out small American flags.  He was mobbed by little kids wanting a flag from the Marine and from other patriots who just wanted to shake his hand.  Thus began the parade.     

There were thousands of people along the route and floats were jammed bumper-to-bumper; if they had bumpers…we actually followed a canoe down the street.  Turning the corner on to Seventh Street, the traffic-jam of entries scattered and the canoe we were following was gone.  My four-wheeler mule team hustled to catch up with the disappearing parade as we volunteers trotted to keep up with our float.  In the blistering heat, and after handing out the last of one thousand flags, Lance Corporal Voss suddenly marched alone.  The large parade of a hundred floats quickly became a small parade of one Marine, and that is when it happened…the crowd erupted with a proud standing ovation.   

I was several hundred yards ahead when I turned to see what was creating the commotion.  The sight of a single uniformed Marine, marching in the midday sun to deafening, patriotic applause, captured the essence of our Independence Day.       

Today’s leftists scream that America, with her freedom and military strength, is the cause of all evil in the world.  Sadly even some presidential candidates adopt such a philosophy and it angers me to see us repeat the anti-military-blame-America-first mood of the sixties. But for that moment on the streets of Laurel, the insanity of the anti-US crowd was drowned by a spontaneous wave of patriotism that made me damn proud to be an American.  Duty, honor, country makes sense to me.  Does it you?