On December 3, 2023, an old man in a green jacket solemnly saluted the American flag during a local Christmas parade in Westerville, Ohio, USA. (Courtesy of RJ Childress Photography)
[The Epoch Times, December 22, 2023](English Epoch Times reporterMichael WingReport/Compiled by Zhang Yufei) Earlier this month, a photographer in Westerville, Ohio, USA, was watching a local Christmas parade and accidentally captured an old man in a green jacket saluting the American flag on the roadside. touching picture. This patriotic photo quickly became popular on the Internet as soon as it was released.
On December 3, photographer Ryan J. Childress and the patriotic old man coincidentally attended a grand ceremony held on South State Street in Westerville. Christmas Parade.
（RJ Childress Photographysupply)
On that day, Ryan’s daughter attended the parade as a member of the children’s phalanx, so the 46-year-old father brought a lightweight point-and-shoot camera Fujifilm X100V to the scene to prepare to take pictures of his daughter. Ryan works in the financial industry and is also a budding photographer.
Ryan stood up immediately when he saw uniformed soldiers approaching carrying the Stars and Stripes, but he discovered he wasn’t the only one standing at attention. The old man in the green jacket also stood up, turned his back to Ryan, and solemnly saluted the flag.
Ryan was touched by this man’s patriotic performance and immediately took a few photos, but he didn’t think too much about it at the time. He just thought the scene looked quite special.
（RJ Childress Photographysupply)
After the parade, he posted a photo on Instagram of the old man saluting the flag. However, what happened next was completely beyond his expectation.
“I thought it was a beautiful gesture,” Ryan told The Epoch Times. “Initially, it had nothing to do with taking the photo, but at that moment, I felt the strong patriotic enthusiasm contained in it.”
It didn’t occur to Ryan at first that thousands of people would feel the same special emotion he did, until a week later, as he sat in Starbucks, an idea popped into his head: “I should figure this out as soon as possible.” A way to find out who this person is because I would love to print out the photo and give it to him personally as a gift.”
Photographer Ryan J. Childress. (RJ Childress Photographysupply)
So, in an effort to find out the old man’s identity, Ryan anonymously posted the photo to a Westerville community page and hoped for the best. Unexpectedly, he soon received a flood of likes and comments from locals.
Upon seeing this, Ryan immediately created a Facebook Business page to facilitate more people to search. He said that within a day, the salute photo had been viewed 750,000 times. So far, that number has more than doubled.
Many community members helped search for the old man, and “eventually someone showed up and left a message saying, ‘He’s my grandpa,'” Ryan told the newspaper, adding that he immediately responded to the message in hopes of connecting with him.
The photo on the left shows Ryan posing with an old man we later learned was named Donald. (RJ Childress Photographysupply)
Next, at Ryan’s warm invitation, the old man in a green jacket met him at a coffee shop at noon on December 19. Ryan finally got his wish and presented a small gift package he had prepared in advance to the respectable patriot in person.
He learned through conversation that the old man’s name was Donald and his wife’s name was Susan, and they also lived in Westerville. Finally, the two men took a photo together.
According to Ryan, Donald’s personality traits are pretty much what he imagined: kind, humble, shy, soft-spoken, and with a strong sense of national pride.
Editor in charge: Han Yu#
