Anchorage Daily News

WASILLA -- Rush hour traffic whizzes by as Roy Burkhart, clad in an Air Force jacket and hooded raincoat, waves to drivers.

"You folks rock, man," yelled one pickup driver.

It's 5 p.m.Monday and Burkhart has had a standing date with this busy Parks Highway street corner since April. Backed by a line of American flags, Burkhart and a handful of others tough out whatever weather Monday brings for an hour and a half to remind drivers of the daily battle U.S. troops are waging overseas.

"I think it's one of the most gratifying things I've ever done," Burkhart said. "We've never been out here that somebody hasn't stopped who was in Iraq" or whose family is serving, he said. "They go down the line and thank us."

Sometimes thankful handshakes are backed up with tears. June Burkhart, Roy's wife, mentioned one young veteran who wept as he advanced up the line of supporters. On Monday the wife of a recently deployed soldier, in Alaska visiting a relative, pledged to stop by with her children and wave flags in honor of her husband, June Burkhart said.

Roy Burkhart said people driving by are mostly supportive, honking and waving. That was mostly the case in Green Valley, Ariz., where he got the idea after hooking up with a group of Marine veterans doing a similar weekly event, he said. But in Arizona, June said, a group of anti-war protestors occupied a corner across the street.

The groups kept it professional, June said. No jeers.

Roy said he vowed to bring the tradition home to Alaska and keep it going as long as possible. They might take a break in the winter, he said, but they plan to be back after breakup.

Roy served in the Air Force as an early-warning radar operator from 1955 to 1959. He got to Korea just after a temporary cease-fire and then served in Oregon. He said waving on the roadside gives him a chance to do something he wished he would have done three decades ago, when troops returning from Vietnam didn't get a hero's welcome.

"The thing that bothered me was, I felt just as strongly for those troops as for these. But I didn't do anything," he said. "Now I can do this. And I want to do what I can do."

The Burkharts and a Palmer couple, Noel and Jean Woods, are there to honor the living as well as loved ones lost in service. The Woods lost a grandson, Army Spc. Shane Woods, who was killed in an explosion in Iraq in 2006. The Burkharts lost a nephew from Phoenix, Ariz.

"We do it in memory of the losses we had. We all wear the gold star. We don't want anybody to forget," June Burkhart said.

Bill Stoltze, who represents the Valley and Chugiak in the state House, said he was on the corner Monday to honor his family's past military service and the service of current troops.

Still holding his "Victory Guarantees Peace" sign as the group packed up for the night, Stoltze said he isn't much of a sign-waver when it comes to elections.

The atmosphere is a little charged and might be distracting for drivers, he said. But he can get behind this more relaxed effort, he said.

"These are all my friends here," he said. "We keep it ecumenical. There's no politics here."

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.

ADVERTISEMENT