Bush Greets the Pease Greeters
PEASE
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
10 March 2008
WASHINGTON – When Edmund Johnson, a retired Marine captain who served in the Korean War, helped found the Pease Greeters three years ago, he never thought he would get the chance to meet the president.
But on Monday Johnson, 78, got that chance with five other founders of the group of volunteers who send off and welcome home the military men and women who pass through Portsmouth International Airport at Pease. It took just 15 minutes with President Bush in the Oval Office to convince Johnson that the commander-in-chief lives by the code of the Marines.
“He’s going to stay the course, and we’re so proud of him for that,” Johnson said. “He is a real man. There’s no quit in that guy. He’s like a Marine, and he talked with us as Marines talk. So there was a commonality, a bond. I was so impressed with him.”
On a trip set up by Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., the Pease Greeters, wearing stunning red blazers that made them look like redcoats amid White House staffers in black suits, said it was an experience of a lifetime.
“I don’t think there’s anything that could top this,” Johnson said.
Joining Johnson for the trip to the White House were Korean War veteran Harold Page, Vietnam veteran Charles Cove, World War II veteran Charles Nichols, Bill Hopper, the Pease airport manager who is a Marine Corps veteran, and Alan Weston. Two of the men are from Maine — Cove from York Beach and Nichols from Eliot. The others are from New Hampshire.
“We represented three wars when we were in there, and the president really heard that and he had some nice comments about that,” Johnson said. “It was a thrill to us that we will never again experience.”
In spring 2005, some members of the Marine Corps League’s Seacoast Detachment, a Marine veterans group, met a flight returning from combat at the airport. Since then the Pease Greeters has grown to a group of nearly 200 men and women who greet every flight bound to or arriving from Iraq and Afghanistan. The volunteers, some of whom drive several hours to get to the airport, offer food, phones and conversations at all hours of the day and night.
“I think the president just wanted to say ‘thank you’ on behalf of people all over the country that have been supporting our troops, men and women serving overseas,” Sununu said.
Before they are shipped to war overseas, many of the troops weep as the Pease Greeters bid them farewell and say to them, “We, the old warriors, salute you, the young warriors,” Johnson said.
“You can tell by emotion, you can tell by looking at their faces, when you see tears running down their faces — grown men — emotions run very close to the surface,” he said.
Cove, who was a corporal in the Marines, explained why the greeters do what they do. “I love this country, and I want to serve the people that serve us,” he said. “This is the greatest country in the world. I knew that before I came here today, but after meeting President Bush, I know that we’re in good hands.”
The trip to the capital is no light matter for the founders. On Sunday, they were given their own send-off by the very group they founded three years ago that has now grown to include hundreds of men and women.
“The last thing I did before boarding the plane was turn, and I saluted the greeters who were back there, and you know, there is no greater greeting or salutation than a respectable salute,” Johnson said.
The veterans also are scheduled to visit Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Pentagon on Tuesday. On Monday morning they paid respects to the many war memorials and monuments in the nation’s capital, and on Sunday they visited Arlington National Cemetery.
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