Small-town fun and the veterans who make it possible

While others mourn the death of small-town living, here in the Valley we are fairly flooded with good, clean family fun. Check out the special section in Sunday’s Frontiersman with hundreds of listings for fun summer events.

We saw many of you at Hermon Brothers Field Tuesday night for the Mat-Su Miners Military Appreciation night; just one of the offerings summer in the Valley provides.

The crowd roared when hometown hero Tyler Hall tossed a strike across home plate to mark the ceremonial start to the game. It wasn’t just that Hall is a veteran that prompted the wave of local pride. It also was the high odds he bested just to stand on the pitcher’s mound against the backdrop of Pioneer Peak.

These days, Hall travels the world speaking to other soldiers injured in the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hall lost a leg from the knee down in an IED attack that damaged his face, destroyed four vertebrae, shattered his arm and blew a hole in his aorta.

We first shared his story of recovery in 2003 and followed up again in 2004, when President George W. Bush awarded him the Purple Heart while he was still at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital.

We were honored when Hall accepted our invitation to throw out the first pitch at the Miners game Tuesday and overjoyed to share his success with our community. It felt like we’d at last found something of a proper thank you when so many of you added your cheers for Hall to ours.

The little boy on the red bike with training wheels at the ballpark Tuesday had no idea the man he was circling is a real-life hero. The girl in braids who danced gleefully about while holding two small flags could not know all that has been sacrificed by soldiers like Hall so that all who wish may display the U.S. flag, the symbol of our nation and its freedoms.

Working in the concession stands at Hermon Brothers were former students who’ve gone on to careers as collegiate athletes. In a bigger community, no one would have known that the young woman who served them their Miner burger now plays for her university team.

That means the little girl who told her about scoring two points for her Little Dribblers team would have missed out on her big, warm smile and words of encouragement. And that college kid home for the summer, in a place where she is somebody, would have missed the chance to be a mentor to a younger girl who dreams of being like her one day.

At Palmer High School’s graduation this year we were struck by the wisdom in one graduate’s summary of life here. When you do something good here, she said, the whole town cheers for you.

The whole Valley is that sort of place. That was the roar from the crowd Tuesday when Hall threw that strike: A whole community cheering with one voice for a hometown hero.

Thank you to the hundreds of our friends and neighbors who packed the stands as a show of respect Tuesday. And we say thank you to all of the men and women who have served in our nation’s military.

We know that it is your service and sacrifices — your willingness to endure war on our behalf — that make possible these quiet, peaceful nights of small-town fun.