The Gray-hairs Strike Again
This story came up while I was out of town last week, so I’m just now getting around to blogging it:
Shortly before landing, Bob Hayden and a flight attendant had agreed on a signal: When she waved the plastic handcuffs, he would discreetly leave his seat and restrain an unruly passenger who had frightened some of the 150 people on board a Minneapolis-to-Boston flight Saturday night with erratic behavior.
Hayden, a 65-year-old former police commander, had enlisted a gray-haired gentleman sitting next to him to assist. The man turned out to be a former US Marine.
"I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes. When I asked the guy next to me if he was up to it, all he said was, 'Retired captain. USMC.' I said, 'You'll do,' " Hayden recalled. "So, basically, a couple of grandfathers took care of the situation."
As others have observed…what are we going to do when these guys are gone? While there are exceptions, including those serving bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems as though courage and service are becoming rather scarce commodities among younger generations. Good on these guys for ensuring that the incident ended safely. Hopefully, there will be others to step up in the future…perhaps they’ll be the retired Iraq vets.