Sometimes we
get notification of a pending mission, and then it just doesn’t work out. This
happened starting last Wednesday when the National President sent an email to
the Regional captains of South Central, and Dixie Region. Seems a Lady in Oklahoma had a problem and
she needed some advice. Her Father a
Korea Era Veteran, had been living in the Philippines, and had passed away. His “Girlfriend” in the PI, had already had
him cremated, before his family knew of his passing, and wanted his personal
property before she would ship the remains to the family. In effect she was
holding him hostage. The daughter
contacted the US Embassy in Manila and it took her two months but the urn was
collected and shipped to America. In
the process the paperwork and urn were lost en route at separate times. When the lady contacted the Patriot Guard
Riders her Father was sitting on a supervisor’s desk in Miami, at a package
express company and they were trying to decide the best way to ship the urn to
Oklahoma.
The regional Captains informed the State
Captains of the states that might be involved in a Pony Express” run to get
this Hero from Florida to Oklahoma. Every State Captain stepped up to organize
the run if needed. Within 20 Minutes, every state including some not on the
route, had said Lets do this, let’s bring him home.
Al in Florida, volunteered to get the Urn
from the Shipping Company and bring it to the Georgia State Line, and we were
working out the schedule in case it was needed.
We had to wait until Monday for the Daughter to contact the shippers,
and see what they were going to do. She had already been promised delivery last
week, and was unhappy with how things were going. On Monday she was again promised delivery by
Tuesday, but on Tuesday the Urn was still in Miami. On Wednesday, she contacted them and was
informed they had be sent to Tulsa, and a private company would be delivering
them by 1800 hours. The delivery did
take place on Wednesday evening, but not before United Airlines managed to
loose him yet again. The driver of the
Private courier hired to deliver to the daughter, had waited for hours for the urn
and she did not leave until they found it, she made them find it and then drove
to McAlester to make the delivery. The name of the courier that made sure she
got the Hero home, Freedom Express!!!
I was thrilled to find out that the Hero
had arrived, and thought it was over until I opened my email tonight. I am
using her words to let you all know what happened::
I just wanted to tell
you a funny story. Laurice from the Embassy called at 2 am this morning and
told me why TNT shipped so quickly and did not call me. I had told an executive of TNT that I had contacted your
organization and that you were going to relay him to me, state by state, since
they were not able to ship him. Well your organization is the reason why they
shipped him! They were afraid the press would get wind of this because it was a
state by state relay and your organization is massive and it would possibly be
on every station before it was all over and they did not need the bad PR. So I
have to say thank you again, you did get my Dad home after all.
So although
we did not get to do the “Pony Express”, I am Proud to be with a group that did
not hesitate to jump right in and do what was needed to help the family of a
veteran. I had made contact with some of
the Ride Captains I would have needed and they too were ready to get this done.
No comments:
Post a Comment