Last night history was made. Ashley Force, NHRA Funny Car driver, in her 2nd season, won her first National event. She is the first female to ever win an event in Funny Car. Last week, she was the first female to be leading the points standing for Funny car, as well. {She still holds the lead.} In her 3rd final this season, she had to beat her own father, John Force. John was going for his 1,000 round win. Ashley made a flawless run, while John smoked his tires early.
Before the Army band began playing hymns, before the VIPs took their seats, before the crowd that waited for hours began to filter into the ballpark, there was only a lonesome flag-draped casket on a platform, with two soldiers standing guard at each end.For a few minutes, the nearly empty stadium became as quiet as a church. A young woman in black was slowly escorted to the front of the platform by a soldier in dress uniform. He stood back as she approached Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin’s coffin. She put her face in her hands and wept.
For all of us.
There were stirring words of inspiration, followed by aching sadness that puts a lump in your throat and keeps it there -- such as the WWII airplanes that flew by in the missing-man formation, then rejoined to symbolize Matt’s final homecoming.
There was a celebration of his life, in his family’s words and in snapshots on the big screen: Matt as a baby in a sleeper decorated with a rocket ship; playing in piles of leaves; wearing a bath-towel Superman cape; with a new bike, with Santa, beloved dogs, in a football uniform, at the prom, graduation, Army uniform, in a Humvee in Iraq. And then the picture we know too well. The one taken by his terrorist captors after his convoy was ambushed near Baghdad in 2004: he stares at the camera in his floppy camo hat, trying not to show fear in the midst of evil.
There was also an emotional tribute to Matt’s family. The crowd stood to applaud Keith and Carolyn Maupin, who have endured crushing fear for four long years, showing the world only grace and dignity. The Maupins turned their devastating loss into love, by doing for all soldiers what they longed to do for their missing son. They shipped care packages to thousands of troops.
If there are places in America where patriotism is not fashionable, this was not one of them. Not at the funeral. And not along roads hedged by an unbroken chain of yellow ribbons and flag-waving supporters.
If there’s another nation that has ever sacrificed such a precious resource in such a selfless cause, I don’t know of it.
There may be places in America where “God” is the only word that can’t be uttered in public. But Matt Maupin’s service was not that place, either. Matt’s Christian faith, and the way that faith has sustained his family, was as unmistakable as the flag-draped casket at the center of it all.
“Look at all the lives that have been touched through one man’s hardship,” Matt’s brother Micah, a Marine, wrote in a letter read at the service. “This is the big picture of what God had in store for you.”
I think Matt came to symbolize way the human spirit can overcome evil. Love found a way home.
“Death does not have the last word today,” said Chaplain Dale Ellens in a closing prayer. “Life does.” Words can’t describe the power and meaning of Matt Maupin’s final, slow salute. But those words come pretty close.
I never knew Matt. But that doesn't matter in any way. His story, his life, touched everyone. It gives this song by Toby Keith a whole new meaning. It gives this war a different meaning. And the fact that just 1 soldier, out of the many serving our country everyday, has moved so many people..that is amazing. Part of me wished that I was there today. {I was at work, actually}
Every time I think about this war, and the soldiers, my heart skips a beat and I remember the people that I have known, even very briefly, who are in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even the ones lucky enough to be elsewhere serving out country. Especially my very good friend in Japan. I really do not know what I would do if he went to Iraq. I think of him as a brother, I wish we were that close, but I have known him since I remember practically.
This is Matt's day. It is a day to remember the troops, to mourn for the fallen, and to remember the real life heroes who are fighting, who have fought, for our freedom. It does not matter how you feel about this war.
For all those uninformed of Matt Maupin's story, visit his official website for everything you need to know.
