John De Lozier stood silently at the roadside as the blue, red and white car lights flashed in the hot midday sun.
And when the hearse passed — somewhere in the middle of Friday’s police escort — De Lozier raised his hand to his heart.
The 70-year-old came to 56th Street and Central Avenue to pay his respects to U.S. Army Spc. Michael Isaiah Nance, a South Side native who died last month in Afghanistan — just three weeks into his first overseas tour.
De Lozier also came because of the wounds that have never quite healed — not from the scraps of shrapnel that sometimes wriggle to the surface of his skin. De Lozier’s mind drifts back to the Vietnam War, when he and many others like him had no welcome home at all.
“It was a different time then,” he said quietly. “You don’t hold a grudge, but that’s why we come out to see these young kids who go over there — the ones that paid the price.”
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De Lozier, a retired AT&T employee, was one of three dozen or so who watched Nance’s casket pass by. Children waved American flags, shyly repeating the words their mothers had told them to say if asked why they had come. Two Chicago Fire Department ladders formed an arch over the roadway — with an American flag draped in the middle.
De Lozier said he’s been to Midway Airport twice, including Friday, to see returning servicemen and O’Hare Airport twice too. And he’ll be there, he said, the next time a soldier comes home.
