The anxious crowd stretched for a hundred yards down Disneyland’s Main Street on Veterans Day, inching its way along at sunset to the flagpole for a glimpse of the man they had all come to see.
The star of the nightly flag retreat ceremony. Ernie “Gunny” Napper.
Many were looking at their cell phones rereading a recent story written about the dedication of this 63-year-old retired Marine, and the warm spot he has in his heart for the man who took public entertainment to another level — Walt Disney.
How every night before he goes home, the 21-year veteran security officer stands under the flag pole and looks across the Main Street Square to say “good night” to the man he sees in his mind standing by the ever-lit lamp in the window above the fire house.
Walt Disney’s old apartment.
The column on Ernie last week went viral, passed on from family to family, friend to friend, as if people were craving a new, unsung hero to look up to this Veterans Day.
Hundreds of vets and their families surrounded Ernie at the park Monday, some with tears in their eyes as they thanked him profusely — others asking for his autograph and vigorously shaking his hand.
The security officer was the biggest attraction in the park — bigger than Mickey Mouse, Pluto or Snow White. He was Ray Charles singing “America.” That big!
“The wife of an officer killed in Afghanistan came all the way from Colorado to give me the wristband her husband wore in combat,” Ernie says. “She came with the general’s wife. What an honor. We all started to cry.
“A man handed me an 8-by-10 picture he had taken years ago of his father and me standing together after the ceremony. His father had just died, and his son wanted me to autograph the picture for him. He said his father’s had it hanging up on his wall at home. It was his favorite.
“It was amazing. There were people still lined up an hour after the ceremony just to meet me. Another guest handed me an old photograph of her husband and me standing at the flagpole. She said one of his last wishes was for her to come back to Disneyland and give me the picture.”
There’s not a phony bone in this man’s body, says Holly Brayshaw, a former Disneyland employee who worked with Ernie for six years.
“It’s not just some act he puts on for work,” she says. “He’s as real as it gets. Someday, after he’s retired and I bring my future kids into the park, I will tell them about Ernie.”
A few years ago Ginger Schneidewend brought her son to Disneyland after he was done with his cancer treatments.
“Ernie took the time to talk to my son and give him a person to look up to when he really needed it,” she says. “So again, ‘thank you’ Ernie, and keep smiling up at the man who started it all.”
When we talked again this week, I read Ernie one of the hundreds of emails and comments that have come in since the original column ran on Friday, Oct 6. This one cut both of us to the bone.
“Sir, you don’t know me and we will never meet,” James Franklin begins. “I am a returning vet with three years total time in Iraq from Desert Shield to Desert Storm, from Kuwait to the border of Turkey.
“I came home a few years back and found not all of me really came home. It seems like I left the good part there and brought only the bad back. I don’t sleep much and I am having hell sitting here typing with these trembling hands.
“Well, enough about me. I just wanted to say I have seen that flag lowering ceremony in person and it is truly inspiring. Not many things bring good emotions out of me anymore, but this story did.”
A gut shot.
Ernie tears up and shakes his head, understanding every word Franklin is trying to get out as he sits there with shaky hands letting the good in him come home, even if for only a few minutes.
“It breaks my heart,” Ernie says, softly. “Too many of our veterans left the good part of themselves over there.”
Maybe that’s why he loves working in this fantasy kingdom so much.
Good always beats evil in Disneyland. Smiles always replace tears. No one ever had nightmares after holding Snow White’s hand.
The man in the apartment above the firehouse, standing in the window by a lamp that’s never turned off, made sure of that.
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs Friday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.