First, I must say that I write for an audience of PGRiders, not for the families of the fallen heroes. (The PGR website provides a “forum” for each mission where logistical information can be broadcast. Some members use that channel to send messages to the families or even our heroes.) Nor do I speak for the PGR organization.

I had never been to Wisconsin Rapids. The trip was long enough for me to decide to stay overnight in town. The Friday briefing was set for 1545 but I arrived shortly after noon so I checked into the hotel and then checked-out the town.

The town has a nice river and the river has a nice bridge and this is it:

There was concern that the funeral service might attract a larger audience than the funeral home could accommodate, so only the Friday evening visitation would be held at the funeral home. The Saturday morning service would be conducted at the Performing Arts Center, part of the high school.

The Best Western (where I was to stay), the funeral home and the Performing Arts Center are all within a few blocks of each other. Located at the center of the triangle formed by those three sites is Tranquility Massage.

So I was early to the funeral home. I was glad to see their big flagpole. I was sorry to see the flag that was too small, dirty, frayed and flown at full staff. I was glad to learn from one of the Ritchay partners, Michael Ritchay, that he had called the local American Legion and that Elmer Loechler would have a replacement up soon.

Elmer told me that the Wood County Veterans Memorial Committee is raising $60,000 for a county war memorial. He is a good guy working on a good cause.

He is also the go-to guy for flags. He tried a 4 by 6 and decided it was not big enough. Soon he returned with a 5 by 8 and raised it to half-mast just in time for the arrival of the father and brother of our hero.

Mr. Eldon Grimm and Andrew Grimm parked near the entrance to the funeral home. I was standing on a distant side of the parking lot wearing black boots, black jeans and a black leather jacket. When I saw that they were coming far out of their way to approach me, I started toward them to shorten their walk.

Mr. Grimm was soft-spoken and gracious. I told them about Tranquility Massage and they said they had seen it.

Shortly after we took up station Mr. Grimm would emerge from the warmth inside to be sure we knew we were appreciated, and when he left hours later he again took time with us. I know we always say “It is our honor to be here” or something like that, but I admit I appreciated his acknowledgements.

Andrew Kirkpatrick, a local guy, was our Ride Captain. His briefing was brief and clear. He told us what to do and what to expect. He encouraged us to take breaks in the basement of the funeral home where coffee and sandwiches awaited. He led us in a recitation of the following:

“Never again will grieving parents, families and friends bear mourning’s toil alone. Never again will hard-won freedom of speech be used to offend and destroy. Never again will their sacrifice be dishonored upon their home soil. No!! Never, never again.”

Our Ride Captain then called on me to offer a prayer and we then deployed.

There were about two dozen of us, none on bikes. Most of us were close to 60 years old, but one was 16. I met him and his father at the Fort McCoy funeral for Jacob Ortiz 18 weeks ago.

The father is Wayne Hembrook. I can imagine many reasons why most other people do not join us on the flag line. I know why I am there. But I am always a little surprised to find others standing in the cold for so many hours. Wayne had a heart valve replacement six weeks ago. In an email to me he wrote, “I wish I could have stayed longer but my doctor has me on a short leash.”

When we started, the sun was bright. We watched it set and we continued to hold our posts. Floyd Serns on my left was standing on two artificial knees. I am not a clock-watcher when I am standing in a flag line. I heard someone say something about “five-thirty” and was surprised that time was passing so slowly. I continued to stand for another three hours or so and then checked the time again with Floyd. “Six forty-two.”

I headed for the basement of the funeral home.

As soon as I reached the bottom of the stairs, two women encouraged me to take sandwiches and coffee. They were sisters of the mother – two of Matthew’s aunts. Each woman had a daughter with her – two of Matthew’s cousins. Once I was seated, the four of them wanted to talk only of me – my comfort; my involvement with the Patriot Guard. They were all very kind. Then Andrew Grimm came into the room.

Naturally, Matthew’s brother got our full attention, and happily I saw that grace under stress seems to be a Grimm family trait. I learned of his plans to return to Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard. Then he went back upstairs and so did I.

I returned to our group for most of the final hour. Some came late, some left early. At the end, there were about 18 of us. I went to Perkins for dinner.

~~~

The next morning I was determined to wear everything I brought. Three t-shirts, for example. As I was dressing and thinking about the day ahead, my thoughts wandered to the scene from Patton where he is dressing in front of a mirror just before his battle with Rommel. When I am with the group, everything feels easy. When I am alone, especially just before, it all feels very serious.

The Best Western offers doughnuts and cereal in the front lobby which occupied me as Paul Steffensen and Ben Jefferson were checking out. They were going across the street to Country Kitchen for breakfast, so I decided to skip the hotel doughnuts.

After we found a table, Ride Captain Andrew joined us.

A short time after that, a young man walked over and greeted Andrew. He said that he had “just gotten off work” and so I asked him his plans for the morning, wondering if he would join us. He said he would be ice fishing. “Hard water fishin’”, Ben explained.

All I know about that activity is what I learned from Grumpy Old Men. The next day, I would pass a lake south of town that presented a scene true to the movie.

I arrived at the staging area just as the casket was being carried into the Performing Arts Center. Six PGRiders had preceded me. Paul, Ben and Andrew soon followed. Paul set up his big flagpole. He had introduced it at the Racine funeral for Evan Bixler three weeks ago. He set it up yesterday at the visitation and he would set it up later at the cemetery.

I was also glad to see Wisconsin State Captain Henry Lange arrive.

Henry has held this job for only a short time but he has a clear vision. He wants to step down after just one year and he knows what he wants to do during that year. He is skeptical of extended ceremony during the riders’ meetings.

The most ceremony I have experienced at such a meeting was conducted by Chris Brocksmith, our State Captain here in Illinois. I thought it worked well. He had a succession of speakers stand in the bed of a pickup addressing some 200 of us. One made a short speech. One read a poem. One led us in song. And one led us in prayer.

Today, Chris appointed Randy Munson as our first State Chaplain. This is a good thing. The Minnesota Patriot Guard has long had a chaplain. Prayer is consistent with our activities and our mission.

Andrew held another briefing as efficiently as the day before. After we recited those 40 words again I offered a 3-paragraph prayer. The middle paragraph, as I remember it, was:

“Today, we pray for Matthew Grimm, our brother, and also for his brother, Andrew Grimm. Andy will soon return to that place where he will provide security escort for convoys traveling from Kuwait to various destinations in Iraq. As he works and when he thinks of his brother, we ask that You help him control his anger and his fear, and that You help him to do his important job with skill and restraint.”

An hour later, during the service in the Performing Arts Center, Jim Doyle, Governor of Wisconsin, announced that he was exercising his authority over the National Guard to excuse Matthew’s brother Andrew from his scheduled return to Iraq. Was this like the eagle that circled three times over another Wisconsin high school and flew away at 1100, exactly when the funeral service for Ryan Jopek began? Merrill is 73 miles from Wisconsin Rapids.

After the prayer, all was silent as we walked across the parking lot, our flags in our hands. No one wants to lead the prayer but everyone wants to pray. It puts us in the right frame of mind.

The anticipation and the ceremony had their effect. Everyone had his head in the game. It was no longer necessary to lead this group – everyone was thinking exactly the same thing. My self-assigned job was to take pictures before the mourners arrived and then find my place in the flag line.

I remember the description used when Twister resigned as head at National: He was going on to “the most honorable job the Patriot Guard has to offer – a place in the flag line.”

Like the 40-word recitation, another thing that was new for Wisconsin (though not for Illinois) was the special acknowledgment we made for mourners in military uniform. Paul would call us to attention as the soldier approached and return us to ease after he entered the building. Other than that, we simply stood in respectful silence.

We lined the sidewalk. Two men were standing on the sidewalk near me, looking around. I didn’t look at them directly and didn’t realize who they were. Then one of them said to me, “Is there a way that my brother and I could see your pictures and perhaps buy some of them?”

Then I saw that his brother was Eldon Grimm. In this place and at this time, not even the Commander-in-Chief outranks the father of the fallen hero. I gave them two cards with the address of this website and encouraged them to help themselves to anything they might want.

The two brothers had more to say, but just then Paul said, “Patriot Guard, atten-SHUN” and I said, “Sorry, Mr. Grimm. Excuse me for a moment.”

I stood still, eyes forward, flag vertical. The Grimm brothers looked around and waited. A soldier passed, his pace quickened by the cold.

And that was quite correct. Eldon Grimm might outrank George Bush, but the passing soldier on his way to a soldier’s funeral represents things grander than any of us: military fidelity, American culture and Western Civilization.

Civilian funerals are primarily for the benefit of the surviving family. I like to think that Mr. Grimm appreciated that we were honoring a greater cause; one that was served by his family’s great sacrifice.

Made famous in Saving Private Ryan, Abraham Lincoln wrote in the Bixby letter:

“I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

“I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

“I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”

When we could talk again, perhaps influenced by our deference for the passing soldier, Mr. Grimm told me that he appreciated us and that I should pass that along to the others. (You who read this, this is that.) I said, “We are all just pleased that you invited us, Mr. Grimm.”

The day was sunny but the area was exposed to the wind and even colder than the visitation had been the night before. In spite of my effort to suit-up better, I was shivering, and so were most of us I suspect. Henry rolled-up his flag, leaned it against the building and went inside.

Later, Henry explained to me that a woman nearby was more than shivering – she was shaking visibly but seemed unwilling to be the first to give-in to the cold. This was leadership by example.

The service began and we all moved inside. There I noticed (naturally) Andrea Stankevych.

She moved from McHenry Illinois to Wisconsin Rapids for the opportunity to be a reporter for WAOW, channel 9. (What is it about Wisconsin Rapids that attracts so many “Andy”s?) If the Westboro people had made good on their promise to crash the funeral, Andrea would have undoubtedly interviewed them.

I asked her if she will take a stage name. (“…for Channel 9, this is Andy Angel reporting.”) She said she might be married soon.

One advantage of motorcycles is that two or three can park in the space of one cage (car) and the cemetery we were going to was small. Several of us had vans and generously offered to give rides so that some cages could be left at the Performing Arts Center. I rode in the Bowden’s van.

The van had five bench seats and windows on all sides – it was really a small bus. Dale Bowden helps run Explorer Post 195 in Wisconsin Rapids. He got this big van for the benefit of the Post. His son Myles was driving today. Myles was a classmate of Matthew Grimm.

John Curran, Mike Weaver and others also took this ride but the van became only half-full. We talked about a fourth Andy (Andrew, brother of Matthew Grimm and Andrew, our Ride Captain and Andrea, the TV reporter being the first three) named Andy Rohmeyer who was Matthew’s best friend and who stood before the assembled mourners in the Performing Arts Center to offer “A Friend’s Reflection”. I didn’t hear it but Mike said it was stirring and well-delivered.

Marveling at the strengths of these younger fellows, Mike commented on who bears the burden. (Demographics.) It is a tautology to note that the cowardly will never receive a hero’s funeral and that the morally confused will never die in war except as a terrorist’s victim. Mike made the point that it is a tragic virtue of our culture that our soldiers are our very best citizens.

Every time one of these clean-cut, motivated soldiers calls me “sir” I stand a little straighter and try to be worthy. In the lands of our enemies, the civilians call the soldiers “sir” and live in fear of them. Every one of our soldiers embraces the Seven Army Values or he does not succeed in our Army: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage.

To the casual, superficial observer, we may appear as mindless flag-wavers. The slightest investigation will reveal that a PGRider wants simply to show respect and to honor the values that our soldiers represent.

Earlier in the parking lot when I was stalking and sniping with my camera I overheard a person say to one of us, “I’m with you guys, I monitor your website…I am not a member, I haven’t signed-up on your website yet”

The response was perfect: “You are already a member – you are an unregistered member.” (Call the INS.)

The Bowden van parked on the shoulder near Pioneer Cemetery and we ran to take our places before the funeral procession arrived. I noticed an unregistered member across the street from us.

Paul noticed him too. “If it looks like it needs to be done, then just go do it.” He ran over to our newest member and gave him one of our flags.

To the extent that we are flag-wavers, Paul gets my nomination as “Best Flag-Waver”.

We marched from roadside into a circle surrounding the mourners at the grave. (Illinois PGR policy and my personal feelings prevent me from publishing pictures of the casket or the family. Flag line duties inhibited me from taking them.) Henry invented the term “Circle of Comfort” from a similar formation in Onalaska for Adam Servais five months ago.

John would later post to the PGR forum, “There was that gentle, soft snowfall at the cemetery that made the rest of world beyond the tall pines just go away.  For all the silence in the woods, the perfect playing of Taps, echoed as if we were in the Grand Canyon, just enough to make us remember how small we are.”

If I had known how perfectly the 24 notes of Taps would be played, I’d have gotten a better picture of this guy.

Again we boarded the Bowden van and again Mike turned our thoughts to the character of the fallen heroes. This is a picture of my beautiful wife, taken September, 2005 at the Canton, Ohio NFL Hall of Fame. That is Pat Tillman’s football jersey on the left and that is Pat Tillman’s Class-A coat on the right.

Pictures of the Friday visitation

Pictures of the Saturday funeral

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