Thought for the day

Today I had the fortune (although that doesn’t sound quite right in the context) to witness a very unique community event.

Staff Sgt. David Day, a National Guardsman, had been killed in Iraq on February 21, 2005. He was one of three guardsmen who fell that day (from the same unit based here in West-Central Minnesota). This was truly a tragic and shocking event for most everyone in the area.

Anyway, all that aside, he had been a police officer in the Twin Cities area, so during his funeral procession (which went nearly right past my office) in Morris (he was originally from Morris) there were hundreds of police officers from across the state participating.

The procession was two miles long and, while I didn’t count the number of police and other law enforcement vehicles, most of it was ‘lit up.’ I’d never seen anything like that before. Not that I cared to see it (given the circumstances) in the first place, but it was definitely something I’m glad I attended.

We can always just hope it doesn’t happen again in the future, and thank those who went through similar processions like the one I was able to watch.

This post was upgraded to the MZ Online Blog on 8/29/07