{"id":22619,"date":"2011-03-17T19:39:22","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T23:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=22619"},"modified":"2011-03-17T19:41:21","modified_gmt":"2011-03-17T23:41:21","slug":"airman-1st-class-zac-cuddeback-comes-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=22619","title":{"rendered":"Airman 1st Class Zac Cuddeback comes home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Airman 1st Class Zac Cuddeback was killed on a bus at Frankfurt Airport last week. Brig. Gen. Mark Dillon,
\nthe 86th Airlift Wing commander, took him home this week and recounts the final miles<\/a>;<\/p>\n

We missed Zac’s arrival by a couple of hours but later that night, as we approached the town of O’Fallon, we started seeing them — American flags — hundreds upon hundreds of them.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it was because we have been living outside the United States for a while, or maybe it had been a long flight from Germany, or maybe it was a pure patriotism. Whatever the reason, as we started passing the flags our car fell silent.<\/p>\n

For miles we passed flags on both sides of the road. And then as we entered O’Fallon, we didn’t just see flags, we now noticed the billboards too. Yes every billboard — churches, schools, and businesses — all had a message honoring Airman Cuddeback. Dozens of them.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, these symbols of a community’s support — American flags and billboard messages dedicated to Zac — put a lump in my throat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And then, when we thought we couldn’t see any more outpouring from this community, it happened. It happened as we began our 4-mile drive to the cemetery. It happened as we drove through neighborhoods and along country roads.<\/p>\n

It was on the drive we saw them; hundreds; no, not hundreds, but thousands. Thousands of O’Fallon citizens lining the route to honor Airman Cuddeback.<\/p>\n

They stood silently on both sides of the road. They stood with American flags in hand. They stood holding up homemade signs. They stood saluting. They stood in their front yards. They stood next to an industrial-sized crane flying a massive American flag above the procession.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thanks to Tankerswife for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Airman 1st Class Zac Cuddeback was killed on a bus at Frankfurt Airport last week. Brig. … Airman 1st Class Zac Cuddeback comes home<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-support-the-troops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}