This mission was and will remain one of the best deployments ever. As an RCIC we never know how many to expect at each mission. No matter how much we worry there always seems to be the just the right amount of people that show up.

July 30th, the ceremony. Was hosted by the Bison High School in Buffalo, MN. It was held in the schools beautiful Performing Arts auditorium. The School Principal and staff were great hosts and were there helping with everything. The Principal ask numerous times if there was anything we needed, The staff was in the auditorium helping the families get seated and were pulling even more chairs out so the family could be seated on the landings.

The Patriot Guard had 44 members that lined both sides of the sidewalk where family and soldier were entering. Our members are the greatest, all I needed to do is tell them the plan and get out of their way (although I think we had one member sent to detention for stepping on the lawn, anyone that was there knows what I am talking about, lol). At about 9:10 the soldiers assembled into formation in the parking lot. Which was the signal that the ceremony was about to start. After all the families were in and seated the soldiers filed in single file and took the reserved seat in front of the stage.

Our members followed them in and lined both sides of the auditorium. I was very impressed with the precision of our members entrance into the auditorium, it looked like we had rehearsed it. We all got to see a dance performance from the QC Dance Inc. out of Blaine, MN. It was a nice performance of tap dancers of all ages from 8 to 16. It was so nice of all the young ladies to take time out of there lives to perform for the soldiers and their families. It made me proud when the one star general mentioned our support in her speech. There was a sad moment in the ceremony when one of the leaders read a poem he gave to his wife, the poem was so touching that he couldn’t keep it together as he read it, I am not sure he knew that it was hard for the rest of us too.

Here is where I am so glad Doug Bley was there. I brought a signed PGR flag to present to the Captain and they had me down to present it during the ceremony. I was trying to prepare myself to get up on the stage, when there he was. Doug walked through the door and I went to the ceremony speaker and changed who was doing the presentation to Doug’s name.

At the end of the ceremony Doug was called on stage, he didn’t get a word out when the whole auditorium stood and applauded, he tried to tell everyone that it wasn’t about us, but no one was listening. I had two emotions going at the same time: 1) I was so proud of being a Patriot Guard. 2) I was so glad that it was Doug up there when they stood and applauded.

Once the ceremony was over the family exited and the soldiers followed for cake in the foyer. After the auditorium was empty our mission was complete. Our members quietly and in single file went out the door and down the hall to our vehicles where they were all dismissed

July 31st, the 353rd departure. There were 25 members at the beginning, 11 of them were the escort riders. I worried again that one the escort mounted up, the members lining the drive would look too few as the 4 buses departed past them.

But again my worries were put to rest, just as the escort mounted up, the gaps in the flag line were filled. Everyone that showed today got an extra treat when out of the blue a small army of patriots showed up in just the nick of time, about 60 or 70 of them. When I said small I wasn’t talking about numbers, I was talking about 60 or 70 people less than three feet tall. Although when they marched up single file from the daycare down the street they all looked like very tall patriots.

These young patriots marched in and lined both sides of the driveway just in front of our PGR members that were holding their flags. I was a little late pulling around to the escort staging area so I had the chance to see what it looked like from the driveway as I drove through the flag line. Seven PGR on each side with about 30 daycare patriots in front of them, lining the length of the driveway standing so proud, I was in awe and I am so glad I wear sunglasses.

July 31st, the bus escort to the airport. Phil did an awesome job lining up law enforcement for the escort. Doug Bley led the 8 PGR bikes and two soldiers on their bikes which were just in front of the busses. I knew we had good law enforcement coverage with the Buffalo Police, Wright county Sheriffs, and Phil running shotgun for us when we left the reserve parking lot. When we got out side Buffalo the Buffalo Police would fall out of the escort and block intersections so we could get through them safely. The Wright County Sheriffs led us all the way to the county line where they handed us off to the Hennepin County Sheriffs. I don’t know where they all came from, but along the way down highway 55 we were joined by police from just about all the cities we passed through.

There were people standing in front of businesses as we went by, vehicles were pulled over on the shoulders with some of the drivers standing next to them clapping as the busses went by. Going through Plymouth we passed a fire truck with lights on and the crew waving to the soldiers as they passed.

Ron and I were running sweep behind the busses, on of our jobs was to make room so the busses could get over to the left lane when we got onto 494. That was sooo easy to do, course it helped a lot when law enforcement and a fire truck have all the traffic stopped already. All the way down 494 to 169 we had the whole freeway to ourselves. They kept all lanes clear. Past 169 we only use two of the four lanes, even then we had a few that thought they might get through the traffic quicker if the jumped into the escort, but then again they didn’t know about the “Ron factor” and they were quickly put back into place.

We got almost to the airport where we needed to get the escort over to take the exit, again it was easy with having a couple of Motor Patrols leading and about seven squads from various areas running interference. We arrived safely

(@) Pictures from mission

(@) PGR National Thread

(@) Thank you note from Sue.

(@) Thank you note from Dorothy

(@) Thank you note from Robyn.

Thank you to all PGR members, what you do make a difference to so many lives. Thanks to Mike Mcdonough and Carrie Wahl for their help with the planning and leadership at this mission. A special thanks to Doug for presenting the PGR flag.

It was a good day to be a patriot Guard Rider

Tim Leonhardt