I thought I’d send a little lighter message, given the tone of my last two notes.
Yesterday we had a few 4th of July celebrations, which was pretty amusing since we are surrounded by a sea of Brits.
First we had a flag raising ceremony outside in front of Division Headquarters. There are a line of unused flag poles there, and the command sergeant major (another fellow with a gruff, incomprehensible accent) gave us permission to use one. He came to the ceremony too, carrying his baton of office (made of smooth, polished mahogany) and wearing a red beret.
The morning was warm and dry, of course, though as the flagpoles lined a raised causeway, there were pools of water to right and left, with large swaths of marsh grass providing a partially green background for us. A few water birds flew over head, squawking very loudly (much louder than a North American duck, it seemed). The birds were white with (I think) a black head and thick black markings on their wings.
A little before 0800, about 40-50 people showed up, only about half American. The rest were mostly British Army but we also had a scattering of civilians and two Portuguese policemen in their formal uniforms. The Colonel got everyone in formation and we began the national anthem (a recording on an i-pod speaker system, we had no band). I raised the flag as briskly as I could, making sure I didn’t tangle the lines. We did have a little fubar as the Navy Lt. who secured the line, got the excess rope wrapped around his boot (so a little humorous hopping and retying took place), but we stood back in time to render our salute to old glory before the anthem finished.
Then, and here’s where it gets fun, the Lt. stood in front of the formation and read out loud the first two paragraphs of the declaration of independence. You could see a few of the Brits looking a tad uncomfortable, heh. Priceless.
[I wish the pictures had turned out better, I'd have liked to do one of those Amex "priceless" jokes...]
The flag flew the rest of the day and the Army Lt. got to take his flag home. He’ll be able to say that his flag flew in Iraq, which is pretty cool.
We then went inside the office, where another Army colonel had spent the morning decorating the J2 shop with American flags, bunting and a few banners from home. He also tacked up his own Bennington flag, a 13-star flag with “76” on the blue field, that he bought at a hardware store in 1976 and had brought with him on every deployment since. He’d tacked pictures of himself with the flag in Lebanon, Panama, Desert Storm and in Afghanistan.
The Colonel then gave a speech, explaining the notion of parades, fireworks and barbecue to the Brits, which they all liked, and then ended his talk first with a toast to the United States, and then a toast to the Queen’s portrait. And then everybody had a slice of cake. Very nice, with lots of “no hard feelings, eh?” and such.
I did find out that the British do not have any equivalent holiday. Unlike most people in the world, who have some sort of independence or national day from when they threw off the hated yoke of a foreign oppressor, or got rid of a dictator, or had a successful revolution (the Portuguese actually have two holidays – one to celebrate freedom from Spanish tyranny in the 1600s, the other when they got rid of their fascist government in 1974), the British don’t really have a day like that. We joked that’s because they’ve only been hated oppressors, to which the Scotsmen in the back of the room went “hear hear!”
All in all, a nice day, with warm feelings and jokes all around.
And then the Italians had to spoil it by beating Germany 1-0 in the semi-final world cup match…
Just kidding.
Fair Winds and Following Sands!
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