Thank You, Airman



Mac and two of his biggest admirers at the Alamo


After my son, Mac, finished basic training for the Air Force, we left base and walked around San Antonio, Texas. So did all the other families of the newly official airmen. Since ours had never been a military family, I wondered how welcome the airmen would be off-base. It seemed like I'd heard horror stories. I imagined that the locals were probably pretty sick of the new airmen walking around their city, perhaps causing trouble or becoming unruly. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

As we walked along San Antonio's famous Riverwalk, one person after another greeted my son and thanked him for serving our country. Many men came up and shook his hand. Children pointed at my son in his dress blues and then waved shyly behind the legs of their mothers. Strangers came up to Mac and asked to take his picture. A few people even had their pictures taken with Mac. A Mexican family asked me to take their picture, and then all of them squeezed around Mac as they posed for a quasi-family portrait. I still wonder whether that picture is framed on a mantel somewhere?

The greetings and thank-you's continued when we went to the Alamo, out for pizza, to the movies, Wal-mart and everywhere else we ventured. It's been three years now and strangers still approach him wherever we go. It's so foreign to me. I can't get used to strangers viewing my son as a public hero. The outpouring of support has been incredible. He loves it. He's gotten used to it. I suppose someday I'll get used to it happening, too, but for now, every time a stranger shakes his hand and thanks him, I'm so proud to be his mother, I could cry.