Did you see the elderly veteran standing in the cold rain last week, hand raised in salute?

Did you see the empty streets of Kennebunkport: the canceled parade, the crowds that stayed home, the sunshine that never came?

Did you see the man who showed up anyway?

No audience or applause, and hardly any cameras. Just a flag, a rifle salute, the long cry of “Taps” and one old soldier who understood that some debts don’t get canceled because of bad weather.

That is America.

Not the fireworks or the speeches. Not the perfect sunny parade down Main Street.

This country has never been sustained by comfort. It has been sustained by ordinary men who believed certain things were worth honoring — even when nobody was watching. Men who understood that freedom does not sustain itself; that it must be remembered, defended and handed down from generation to generation, storm to storm.

The parades can be canceled. But as long as even one American still stands beneath that flag, with genuine reverence for those who died beneath it — in the rain, without applause, without recognition — then the country will endure.

Did you see him? If you did, you saw America at its best.

Ryan Bilodeau
Kennebunk