Spent another beautiful day at Ft. Snelling today for the Christmas Wreath ceremony honoring our country’s heroes.
( spared you the family pics)
We have gone to this and the Memorial Day event every year for at least the last 7-8 years.
Always help out with the boxes, in the trucks, anywhere anyone needs.
I will be contacting those in charge regarding what happened today though.
We have 6 family members spread out in the cemetery at various locations. We take 2 boxes ( 12 wreaths) and bring them to our family sites and to gravesites neighboring them. Say a prayer, say their name and thank them for their service.
I am NOT doing this the Justice ( or injustice) it deserves but here is what happened.
I arrive at the back of the semi trailer to get 2 boxes of wreaths. I am handed two boxes, I take them and walk to the front of the semi, hand them off to one of my sisters to bring to the truck and go back to help with unloading. A woman shows up right then and starts screaming – yes – screaming “put those boxes , get out of the truck ( plenty of profanity) Kids in the truck along with parents helping. You can’t be in there, what are you doing, dammit i said put those boxes down, walks/runs up the side of the truck to a woman who has two boxes and pushed them out of hands down to the ground and yells at her to bring those back and put them on the truck, nobody gets any boxes, – LITERALLY understating her rage/antics/fits/ psychosis, tantrum….. She says “the wreaths can only go in sections X and Y ( the two sections on either side of the road where the truck was) and then once they are filled they can go elsewhere. HUH??? I don’t THINK so! We donate time AND money so we can honor more than just some arbitrary geographic space.
Two of the men in front of me CALMLY ask her what the problem is and that they are just trying to help – she turns and screams at them you can’t be in there ( the truck) you can’t do this, nobody touches the boxes…..
One gentleman then approaches her and asks her her name, she yells something at him and he calmly asks her again and she yells something else I cannot understand ( I am 2 feet away this whole time) and storms off to grab another person with boxes. She then comes back and one guy asks her who she is and she yells at him “I am the coordinator of this event” .
I had enough by then and simply asked “could you calm down” and she yells something at me and then I say ” were just trying to help”, same unintelligible response and then storms off and proceeds to read the driver his obituary!!
People around me are like “is this happening?!”
I will be speaking to the powers that be re: this but it was SURREAL!
If you are having a bad day, I understand but you can dial it back. She just kept getting worse and worse.
AS I said, we have done this for years. If this is a new change, great, we’ll do whatever you need but announce it at the ceremony then.
COMPLETELY unacceptable and out of line.
Beautiful and touching event, as always, with the exception of her.
Attachments:
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Our Veterans deserve special recognition.
