US Army Sgt. Richard Essex Procession

[Magellon]

Yesterday I had the Honor of escorting Sgt. Richard Essex home. He was a gunner on the Black Hawk that went down in Afganistan recently. It was a PGR mission, only the third I have been on. The first was a welcome home of a young man I've know since he was 10 and a friend of my son's. The 2nd was a homeless vet how died with only his sister for family and about 40 none family PGR & service personal present. This 3rd mission for Sgt Essex was without a doubt the most emotional.

My son joined the Army in Feb, graduated boot camp and tomorrow will graduate training at Ft. Huachuca. He called me tonite and just today found out he has been accepted to Ranger Training and we will not be able to see him till December. I have not posted a lot but do read many of the posts here and would just like to say thank you to all the Vets who have served.

At first when people would notice the picture of my son in his uniform on my desk and say "thank him for his service" I thought it was a little odd.  Having never served myself or never really spoke that phase myself I thought it felt strange. But after just the first PGR ride and espcially now I feel that it DOES mean something to say it is NOT strange or odd. So again "THANKS TO ALL WHO HAVE SERVED".

A buddy of mine found a video that the local paper posted on Youtube. It is nicely done but does not show how many people turned out along the way. When we left Sonoma county airport many of the workers along Airport Dr came out with flags and stood at attention as we rode by, at least 1000.  Along the way to his home town on freeway over passes and the side of the road countless people stopped and honored him, police and fire vehicles were parked on the over passes. The local paper video does not show all his towns people that lined up down town to honor him. Kelsyville has a population of only 3300. Lakeport population is 4700. I spent 6 years in Lakeport, my parents still live there. I was very proud of the turn out to honor him by both cities. I recently mounted a camera on my bike so I took some video of the mission, Unfortunatly my camera was not cooperating when we left the airport but I did get some video along the way. Here is the Youtube links if you would like to watch.

LakeCoNews Video
US Army Sgt. Richard Essex Procession


Sgt. Essex arrives at Kelseyville.


Sgt. Essex passes through Lakeport