Page 38 - June 2017 Newsletter

HATS OFF CONTINUED FROM PAGE 37
ues, trying to ignore the voices in their heads.
“While inspecting, they’re talking to each other and saying everything they’re finding out loud,” explained Rothwell, who joined the Chicago Honor Guard less than a year ago. “Stuff you don’t even think about, they were finding, checking if you missed any spots while shaving.
It was nerve-racking.”
This was the eighth time that the Honor Guard par-
ticipated in the competition that takes place each year during National Police Week. Made up of approximately 25 Chicago Police Officers, a select few are chosen each year to make the trip to D.C., where the standards are high but the opportunity to make a statement enhances their mission to honor the fallen.
Ostrowski is one of the members who started the Chi- cago Police Honor Guard in 1998. When Beyah addressed Ostrowski with an idea for the competition, Ostrowski en- couraged him to take the lead and advised him to choose a team wisely.
“This isn’t a personality thing,” Ostrowski clarified. “This is somebody you want to stand up and represent with. Not everybody is able to get up in front and speak.”
Following 2016’s Chicago Honor Guard performance where an all-female team honored six women who died in the line of duty, Beyah knew that it was important to continue the Honor Guard Competition the Chicago way.
“There’s a lot of rifle twirling and some of the more flashy stuff,” Rothwell describes about the routines Hon-
or Guards from the Florida Honor Patrol to the San Ber- nardino County Sheriff’s Office typically present. “We were trying to maintain a solemn message throughout.”
Creating the choreography for the presentation was a group effort. Each member selected an officer to honor while inspiring judges and onlookers to view the fallen through an international lens. They began in four sepa- rate flagged corners, representing the distance between the officers whose stories they would tell. The audience then watched as the four corners converged on the center of the square, where Robles presented an opening mono- logue, stressing the union of officers near and far under a distinct willingness to risk their lives to serve.
“The headgear you see is symbolic of the costs of ser- vice,” stated Robles, who held a neatly folded American flag during the opening monologue of the performance. “We are here on this fine day to pay honor and tribute to those fine men and women who have served those stand- ing watch right now and those who have made the ulti- mate sacrifice.”
Following Ostrowski, Prohaska, Beyah and Rothwell’s monologues, Robles played the familiar melody of “Taps,” the song played in the U.S. to honor the military’s dead, but universally recognized for its tune and lyrics that have set the tone of sacrifice since the Civil War.
Police Constable Keith Palmer was the first officer to be presented when Ostrowski stepped forward to pick up headgear worn by United Kingdom officers. He held the hat tightly while looking into the crowd to tell Palmer’s story.
38 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JUNE 2017