In a homecoming fit for America’s heroes, 13 Marines received an impromptu welcome home at Chicago O’Hare International Airport as they made the trek back to California after completing a tour in Afghanistan.
Before the Marines embarked on the final leg of their cross-country trip home to San Diego, Calif., the group of 13 heroes was greeted at Chicago O’Hare by a string of well-wishers and grateful Americans, The Associated Press reported. As their plan taxied to the gate, fire trucks sprayed water from department hoses forming a water salute. Upon deplaning, the Marines were greeted in the terminal by a crowd of USO volunteers, firefighters, police officers and airport workers.
“It was incredibly touching,” Capt. Pravin Rajan, who served seven months in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press. “Afghanistan is a very complex and ambiguous war … and a difficult thing to keep track of so it is amazing when we are 10 years (into) a war and there is still that kind of community, that level of support, the level of willingness to go out of one’s way.”
As the troops’ plane approached the gate to the site of firetrucks, Rajan said the sight was a bit unnerving.
“For a second, we are like, ‘Are we in trouble?'” he recounted.
But the gesture didn’t stop there. As the Marines boarded their plane bound for San Diego, the group learned American Airlines had designed six first-class seats for them. And the remaining Marines? Seven first-class passengers willingly offered them their seats so the service members could all sit together.
The idea for the welcome home was the brainchild of Stephanie Hare, who called O’Hare’s USO and told them her fiancé, Rajan, was on a plane en route to Chicago from Baltimore.
“I just thought if they could get them some Chicago pizza, champagne or something, that would mean a lot,” Hare said.
Seventy-four-year-old John Colas,a Marine USO volunteer, answered the call, and with only an hour until the plan landed, set his plan in action. Colas called the local police and fire departments, the airlines and a host of other people to try to pull of the welcome home the troops deserved.
“There must have been 15 Chicago fireman and an equal number of Chicago police, and they formed a corridor for the Marines when they got off the airplane,” he said.
Hare had no idea what had happened until she listened to a voicemail from Rajan on Tuesday.
“I just though it was really beautiful,” she said.
