Bobby Le Marche and USA's Patriotism

Well today I was mightily impressed with the American patriotism and the whole “Support Our Troops” loyalty thing; we passed through a town called Escanaba in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan having seen a sign on a fence saying “Welcome Home Bobby”. I assumed it was someone called Bobby from that household who was maybe coming back from Iraq or something. A few miles later we were driving through a smaller town called Wells and there were even more of the same signs including electronic ones outside hotels and businesses; the type normally used for advertising. Anyway, we stopped for gas and I asked the guy there what it was all about; it turns out it’s some guy called Bobby Le Marche returning from Iraq who's paralysed after getting shot, and he’s returning home this afternoon so they’re asking people to put our yellow ribbons and come out to welcome him home. So we hang around and about two hours later than planned there’s this cacophony of sirens and vehicle horns coming from some way away. When it gets closer we see fire and EMT trucks and police cruisers all with their lights and sirens going, military Hummers and trucks from the local National Guard barracks, and literally hundreds of bikes all in this huge convoy for this guy. And just a young local ‘nobody’ (till now anyway) guy, not some big wig or anything! Talk about bringing a lump to my throat; why couldn’t they do something like that in the UK? Everyone would be too busy or embarrassed to come out and cheer some guy on who’d done that bit more than his duty for his country! A very touching moment.