Roy Exum: Today’s Funeral Procession

  • Friday, July 24, 2015
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

It has been three years since the Westboro Baptist Church, a radical group of Christians if ever there were one, threatened to “protest” at the funeral of Lt. Col. Roy Lin Tinsdale, a loyal son of Texas A&M. About two hours before he was to be buried at the Central Baptist Church in College Station, the kids started showing up.

Under a broiling Texas sun, hundreds of Aggies circled the church at a respectable distance and locked elbows, vowing to not let any protesters spoil Col.

Tinsdale’s service or his burial at the famed cemetery known as the “Aggie Field of Honor.” One boy even wore a maroon T-shirt that read, “None of us are as strong as all of us.”

Is this beginning to sound familiar? This afternoon Marine Sgt. David Allen Wyatt will be eulogized in a funeral at the Hixson United Methodist Church and then, with a heavy processional, his body will be taken to the National Cemetery where he will be buried with thousands of other silent warriors. Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke has already issued a directive that there will be no protests of any kind at any Chattanooga funeral and the same police force that has been heralded for an entire week for their valor “knows what to do.”

Sgt. Wyatt was murdered along with four other service members last week when a “lone wolf” terrorist went on a planned rampage at the Chattanooga reserve center. Already a “Chattanooga Wall” is forming and Facebook administrator Jamie Brown told WTVC News she has over 4,000 commitments to take part. “You have the right to say what you want and we have the right to block you and protect our community from those hateful words," she told reporters.

Steve Hullander, a Vietnam veteran, said the plan is simple. "We're going to be the wall between Westboro Baptist Church and those families. We're not going to let them get close. What we want to do is make sure they don't get near the family and we don't do anything that will help their cause, which is to get on the news," Hullander told the TV reporters.

The way the A&M Wall worked was pretty basic. Organizer Ryan Slezia, a promising Aggie who was in law school back then, got wind of Westboro’s threats and is credited with immediately sounding the alarm on Facebook. “In response to their signs of hate, we will wear maroon. In response to their mob anger, we will form a line, arm in arm. This is a silent vigil – a manifestation of our solidarity,” he wrote.

Lilly McAlister, one of the students standing with her elbows locked to those of either side, said in a hushed voice, “We are here for the family. We are positioned with our backs to them. Everyone has been told there’s no chanting, no singing, no yelling anything back.”

Believe it or not, Col. Tinsdale was killed on American soil, just like Sgt. Wyatt and his buddies from “M Battery.” Tinsdale found out a soldier at Fort Bragg had stolen a $2,000 box of tools and was in the process of issuing a dishonorable discharge when the accused shot Tinsdale in the face in a cold-blooded act, then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.

In 2012, not many at Texas A&M actually knew Col. Tinsdale. He had graduated some 20 years earlier. Ironically, most Chattanoogans who have prayed and wept over the service members who were killed in in our city last week also did not actually know them personally. But then there is this, and it is one of my favorite stories of all time.

About 500 students made the Texas A&M wall, but over a thousand more Aggies lined either side of the avenue from the church to the A&M Field of Honor. Westwood Baptist protesters were smart enough to stay away from Texas A&M that day, but those who attended the funeral will never forget the kids forming the wall, or those who stood two and three deep on either side of the avenue.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said one Army officer who served with Col. Tisdale. “The line stretched all the way to the cemetery. People were waving flags, placing their hands over their hearts. I’ve fought in wars but I got goose bumps on top of goose bumps.”

Lt. Col. Steve Ruth, one of Tinsdale’s classmates at A&M, walked from the church to the Field of Honor and along the way, he spied a woman in A&M garb with her children. He figured she was about the same age as Roy Tindale, who grew up on a Texas ranch and rodeoed before he joined the Army.

“Excuse me, ma’am but I want to ask … did you ever know Roy Tindale?”

The woman smiled just so and then answered with a Texas drawl, “Sir, he is the son of Aggieland … there are no strangers on this road.”

I pray that David Wyatt’s family and friends, as they bury him today and watch the many Chattanoogans who will pay homage, will in some way realize that David, the other three Marines and the sailor, belonged to Chattanooga, too. Here is where Sgt. Wyatt will be buried. And as the funeral procession goes from the Hixson church to the military cemetery this afternoon, know this -- there will be no strangers on the road.

royexum@aol.com


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