Welcome Home (Small Town Style)

My wife Catherine & I were walking over to church Sunday evening at about 6:00 p.m. when I heard the sirens – a lot of them – wailing in the distance and coming our way fast. What was it this time? A fire? A car wreck? So sad; these things happen all to often in our little corner of the world.

Then I saw the flashing lights turn the corner and head down the street towards us, making the biggest racket you ever heard. The dusk was shattered by a convoy of strobing flashes of blue, white, & red light stretching back several blocks down the street. A multitude of differing sirens loudly competed with each other for attention; horns were blaring to clear the way.

The Fire Chief’s bright red pickup truck led the procession, followed by an assortment of six fire trucks from across the county, a police cruiser, EMS, and a half-dozen unmarked cars, all lit up like Christmas trees and making enough noise to wake the dead.

“What’s going on?” Catherine asked. “What is that?”

I smiled. “It’s an escort,” I said. “Somebody just came home.”

And indeed someone had. Cade Shackelford, a 2006 graduate of Casey County High School and current member of the National Guard’s 617th Military Police Unit was home after serving a tour of duty in Iraq.

Welcome Home, Cade. Small town style.