We had a Very Special Guest Star at the park today. General Tommy Franks (Ret.), recently appointed to the Board of the National Park Foundation, paid a visit to the Fort. I was leading the Christmas in July celebratory volley, and so I got to do my musket talk for him and the rest of the audience. Probably 80 people were there to watch the talk, and none of the visitors seemed aware, at all, that the tall man in the middle of the crowd was the general who commanded our forces through Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, a man with 5 DSMs, 4 Legions of Merit, four Bronze Stars and 3 Purple Hearts, a man who is second only to Donald Rumsfeld in making the best press conferences C-SPAN has ever shown.
As for me, the keen knowledge that my program was being viewed by a 4-star general with an undefeated record, and the park superintendent (whom I've barely met) by his side, had a way of focusing my attention like a laser beam. My talk went very well. Then, there were 2 misfires in a 4-gun volley, but they both fired on the second attempt. So all's well that ends with us representing ourselves well.
That's awesome! Did you get the chance to talk to him directly?
Posted by: Dad | 26 July 2005 at 16:37
In the context of interpretation, yes. I got to tell him about Lewis and Clark directly. But that's it.
Posted by: Dan | 29 July 2005 at 02:31
All right, my bad. I should have said, "Did you have an opportunity to speak WITH him, privately or otherwise?" Sheesh, you'd a thunk I raised this kid to be overly pedantic or sumthin... (yeah, okay, I did - shame on me; however, that being stated, we do get some fairly funny conversations going because of it)
Posted by: Dad | 29 July 2005 at 14:02