Connectivity
This past weekend I went to the Stadium of Fire in Provo, Utah. It was really a great show. They had a variety of entertainment, ranging from skydivers, performances from American Idol, Taylor Hicks and Lee Ann Womack, and the fireworks. The Pentagon had also selected the Stadium of Fire as the exclusive broadcast to troops throughout the world through the Armed Forces Network.
My favorite part of the show was when the announcer told the audience that there was a soldier in Afghanistan who would be able to speak to his family (who were attending the Stadium of Fire performance) by satellite broadcast. Apparently the soldier had been fighting in Afghanistan for eight months. The man was projected on the screen, and the family members began to speak to him from the stadium. They seemed so excited to finally get the chance to talk to him. We could hear and see the soldier from the stadium, but he just kept responding with, “I can’t hear you. I just can’t hear you.” It was kind of a devastating moment. The family finally had the chance to talk with this soldier, and he couldn’t even hear them because of some problems with the broadcast. Then, the screen went black, and this soldier came out to the front of the stadium. It was such a beautiful moment. The family members embraced after eight months of not being able to see one another. Tears streamed down my face. A family had been reunited.
I couldn’t help but think that this type of “reuniting” is what we are trying to do at WorldVitalRecords.com. We want people to have these same types of experiences with their loved whom perhaps they haven’t seen for perhaps hundreds of years. We want to provide people with the information and resources to connect with their families.
I really believe that there is something within all of us that just longs to know the people who are related to us and those who came before us so we can have a better understanding of who we are. Indeed, there is something innate within all of us that creates a desire to know our families and to be connected with them. We want this connectivity.
July 6th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
That soldier and his family are my neighbors. They were expecting him to be home until they got a call telling them he would be delayed a few weeks. I guess they were pretty disappointed by the “news.” You can imagine how excited and surprised they were when he came out onto the stage. Fun stuff.