The Alamo

Robert at Blackfork is doing a series on the siege of the Alamo. He started it on Feb. 22, and it is called 13 Days To Glory. Go Read it. It started me to thinking about the Alamo.

I was born and raised in Texas and have heard about the Alamo for as long as I can remember. I knew who Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, William Travis and the others were before Walt Disney told the whole world about Davy Crockett and the Alamo in the fifties.

I have read every book about it I could find, saw every movie and television program I heard of, and anything else I could find.

I grew up in Tyler, Texas, which is in east Texas and not very close to San Antonio by even Texas standards, was not able to be there until the late fall of 1966 when I was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base for basic training.

When it came time for our first pass to town late in our stay at basic, the first thing I did was find out how to get to the Alamo. When the bus stopped downtown that is the first place I went. That was more the forty years ago some of the memories are not what I would like, but I remember being shocked at how small the chapel, which is all some people know as the Alamo, was.

Some of the rest of the old church which became a fort are still there to be sure, but is the chapel which to me and many others has become the shrine. I remember being inside the chapel and reading the names of the men who died there listed on the wall and being in awe of their courage and selflessness and grateful for the time they bought for Sam Houston. Without their sacrifice Texas might not exist.

I have been back to San Antonio and the Alamo many times since and still am in awe and gratitude every time I enter that chapel. But nothing has ever come close to what I felt the first time that I stood on the very ground that that had been occupied for thirteen days by men who very great and very courageous indeed.