Standing in Line
Jun 11, 2004
Last night, my wife and I drove in to D.C. to pay our respects to President Reagan as he lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. As we arrived, the line was backed up well onto the Mall. We joined the line at 7 PM, and finally were able to pay our respects at 11:20 PM. As we stood there silently, deeply awed by the majesty of the setting and moment, President H.W. Bush and Barbara and former Secretary of State, James Baker and his wife entered the Rotunda. They prayed at the casket for about a minute and left. The ushers then quietly directed our group to exit and we were replaced by others. As we exited the Capitol, we received one of the engraved remembrance cards being passed out to all attendees. After signing the condolence books for the Reagan family, we walked back across the Mall to our cars. It was midnight now, and we were stunned to see that the lines had at least doubled in length. I asked a D.C. policeman how long the wait was now. “Best guess – at least 9 hours.” And yet, still many more were arriving.
Standing there in line, we got to meet a bunch of folks. We talked to families from Vermont, Colorado, Alabama, and Florida. The people just behind us had driven up from Richmond. They had left right after school had let out so that they could bring their kids. There was a Boy Scout troop from Pennsylvania. There were folks there of every color and ethnic group, and we could hear conversations in several languages besides English. . The crowd was friendly and civil. There were so many children of all ages. And there were service members in uniform from all of the services.
People talked of Reagan. Oh course, the key events of his time in office were mentioned. But not as a rehash of history. The discussions were more personal and centered on specific memories that each speaker had from that time which somehow connected him to Reagan. But strangely, little of it was political. This was not a political event. No politician could ever orchestrate an event like this. It was purely a spontaneous event. People were there for fundamentally one reason; they wanted to come and honor this man as he passed away from us.
Along the line, there were numerous reporters set up doing spot interviews. It appeared that all the broadcast companies and local radio stations were represented. They wanted to tap into the spirit of the event. One of the reporters addressed my wife, asking why she was there. Her answer was simple. All four of her grandparents were Polish émigrés. Through them and their extended families she deeply understood how much they appreciated the role that President Reagan had played in the collapse of the Soviet empire which had enslaved them.
As we moved along in the line, I asked myself, why was I there? Well, my memories of Reagan run back a long way. I grew up in California and was aware of Reagan long before he was the President. But I do have one specific and personal memory of the man. In the 1980s we were embroiled in the cold war with the Soviet Union. Across the plains of Central Europe we had arrayed a huge allied military force, led by the United States which was prepared, if necessary, to repel any invasion by the forces of the Soviet Union and its allies. At the time, I was an Air Force officer and pilot. I flew A-10 fighter bombers and would have been in the middle of that maelstrom. We did not want to ever have to do that, but those of us there were resolved to do so if necessary. Thankfully, we never had to fight that war. I truly believe that it was our resolve to do so if necessary that prevented it from ever happening. I saw that same resolve in the faces of so many I served with. And I know where that resolve came from. It came from our leader, President Ronald Reagan.
That is how I remember the man. And that is why I was standing in that line.
Darrel Whitcomb