SOLDIERS LEARN NEW MEANING OF 'FIRST CLASS'

[trof]

E-mail I just got.
If you have an opportunity to do this, please do it.
No source in e-mail.
trof

A few passengers on a recent American Airlines flight gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "first class", when they gave returning R&R-bound U.S. soldiers an unexpected upgrade. "There are a couple of flights I'll remember forever, and this will always be one of them", recalls American flight attendant Lorrie Gammon.

On July 4, Gammon was on duty when 12 soldiers boarded her American flight from Atlanta to Chicago. They were on their way home from Iraq to begin 2 weeks of R&R. Suddenly, one of the first-class passengers stood up, took his boarding pass back to main cabin. Next thing, the entire first-class section of the plane stood up and gave their seats for the servicemen and women.

Gammon says she didn't know what to make of it at first. "They were almost afraid to take their seats and were trying to give them back, and the businessmen were like, 'No, you guys sit here, we're going back to main cabin.'" Gammon says the flight attendants were watching this from the galley, and trying but failing to stop from crying. She says the soldiers had tears in their eyes too. She says one of the officers told her the
soldiers have been in Iraq for more than a year, with bombs going off around them every day.

"Just to know we're behind them, means the world to them", Gammon says. She says she knows people want to show their support for our troops, and on that day, on that one flight, she saw that support displayed right in front of her. For on that day, the seats in first class were filled with first-class American soldiers.

[Birthmark]

1. I certainly hope that that's true.

If it's not, don't tell me. I don't want to know. Even skeptics should take a day off. :)

[Cerridwen]

2. Source in the DU thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x687496

[trof]

12. Thanks. eom

[gratuitous]

3. Sorry, not interested

For one, I can't afford first class; I work for a living.

For two, I already give a third of my paycheck every month to the American wehrmacht to purchase armaments and pay for people to "defend" me from non-existent threats.

But you go right ahead if it makes you feel better.

[bigbillhaywood]

4. What always pissed me off about first-class is not that you got

better seats and service for paying more--I understand that. But that fucking curtain! Like us coach passengers are so lowly we cannot even gaze upon the first-class passengers. What, are they getting BJs up there or something? Just another example of what a classist society we are, even while so many politicians from both parties try to convince us that most Americans are part of some great, nebulous "middle class". What a bunch of bullshit. Working-class and proud of it!

[SoCalDem]

6. I have flown first class twice..It's nice, but not worth the extra $$

Both times I flew first class it was free, so I loved it...but I would have never paid for it.. This was ages ago, so I don;t know what it's like these days..

A macabre twist on first class..in crashes, they are usually the first to "meet their demise".. :(

[DoveTurnedHawk]

5. Great Story (eom)

DTH

[Zen]

7. That was a very nice gesture. I have flown in FC - company requires

that on certain length flights we MUST fly first class. So, these aren't all elitist people sitting up there!! I don't like the curtain either - no matter which side of it I'm on!

[Sequoia]

8. But wait, isn't switching seats one of those new anti-terror deals?

[Justice]

9. Very Nice Story,

but as you can already see it is different than the actual news story - becoming a story that you'll soon hear Bush tell and it will morph into a legend of some sort.

[NMDemDist2]

10. the only google i could find on this story was at freerepublic whod

source it here with the http://www.kdfwfox4.com/ with the byline (Frisco Jully 11), under "news" then "top stories"

[peacetalksforall]

11. I want to believe the story. It fits right in with my old fashioned ideas

about goodness. Politically, I like the soldiers to know that we support them. We (I mean I) don't support the young kids, but not their brass bossses - the brass who are partners with PNAC and with corporations and intelligence, the ones who know the lies of war. The ones who have to have new toys and who try to create wars so their toys can be tested. The ones who have to have new toys so that their partners in corporations can make bundles of money that they share around. The ones who brainwash the young ones. The ones who in times of threat, push to proceed with a war because they got the soldiers all pumped up and want them to go. The ones who don't believe in negotiation and for whom peace means being out of a career.