N.H. troop greeters get president’s ‘thank you’

WASHINGTON – When Edmund Johnson, a retired Marine captain who served in the Korean War, helped found the Pease Greeters three years ago, he never thought he would get the chance to meet the president.

But on Monday afternoon, Johnson, 78, got that chance with five other founders of the group of volunteers who send off and welcome home the military men and women who pass through Portsmouth, N.H., International Airport at Pease. It took just 15 minutes with President Bush in the Oval Office to convince Johnson that the commander-in-chief lives by the code of the Marines.

“He’s going to stay the course, and we’re so proud of him for that,” Johnson said. “He is a real man. There’s no quit in that guy. He’s like a Marine, and he talked with us as Marines talk. So there was a commonality, a bond. I was so impressed with him.”

On a trip set up by Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., the Pease Greeters, wearing stunning red blazers that made them look like redcoats amid White House staffers in black suits, said it was an experience of a lifetime.

“I don’t think there’s anything that could top this,” Johnson said.

Joining Johnson for the trip to the White House were Korean War veteran Harold Page, Vietnam veteran Charles Cove, World War II veteran Charles Nichols, Bill Hopper, the Pease airport manager who is a Marine Corps veteran, and Alan Weston. Two of the men are from Maine: Cove is from York Beach and Nichols is from Eliot. The others are from New Hampshire.

“We represented three wars when we were in there, and the president really heard that and he had some nice comments about that,” Johnson said. “It was a thrill to us that we will never again experience.”

In spring 2005, some members of the Marine Corps League’s Seacoast Detachment, a Marine veterans group, met a flight returning from combat at the airport. Since then the Pease Greeters has grown to a group of nearly 200 men and women who greet every flight bound to or arriving from Iraq and Afghanistan. The volunteers, some of whom drive several hours to get to the airport, offer food, phones and conversations at all hours of the day and night.

A similar group of troop greeters first welcomed service members at Bangor International Airport in Maine during the first Gulf War in 1991.

“I think the president just wanted to say thank you on behalf of people all over the country that have been supporting our troops, men and women serving overseas,” Sununu said of Monday’s event.

Before they are shipped to war overseas, many of the troops weep as the Pease Greeters bid them farewell and say to them, “We, the old warriors, salute you, the young warriors,” Johnson said.

“You can tell by emotion, you can tell by looking at their faces, when you see tears running down their faces – grown men – emotions run very close to the surface,” he said.

Cove, who was a corporal in the Marines, explained why the greeters do what they do. “I love this country, and I want to serve the people that serve us,” he said. “This is the greatest country in the world. I knew that before I came here today, but after meeting President Bush, I know that we’re in good hands.”