For anyone that has been to downtown Tyrone lately, they probably have noticed the display of past and present military pictures at Columbia Ancillary Services Inc.
There are countless photographs of local military veterans serving as far back as the Civil War and as current as the second Persian Gulf War. The patriotic display stretches over 42 feet of window space, and sometimes, up to nine pictures are being added daily.
“People started seeing the display and recognized what it was,” said general manager of Columbia Ancillary Services Inc. Tom Peacock. “Then more people started stopping and looking at it, and then more in the last week or ten days people have been stopping than there have been in the past. There’s always someone out there looking at it.”
There is usually always someone walking by the window display who stops and looks at it for a while. Peacock said he has seen many people drive by in their cars and then turn around and come back to stop and look at the pictures. He also said some people have driven all the way from Erie just to see it because of friends and family that are included on the display.
Now that the United States is fighting the war against Iraq, many major television networks, newspapers and other media outlets are showing their patriotism by doing something similar to the military photo display at Columbia, whether it be a wall of pictures or a web site or something else.
“I think it’s funny that the community the size of Tyrone had an idea like that before a nation-wide network,” said Peacock. “Or some of the other networks are just doing names. MSNBC is doing a wall, just pictures with no names, but ours has the pictures and the names and where they served and the years they served.
“I think it’s neat we had something like that before anybody else even thought of it or before it became public. I’m sure someone else thought of it, but it wasn’t as publicized.”
Peacock said the best part about the window display is that many people have come in and expressed their thanks for putting up so many photographs. There are military personnel from Tyrone, Bellwood, Warriors Mark, Sinking Valley and other surrounding areas. In one case a whole family appears on the board with a member of the family who served in the Civil War and then every generation up until now with the War in Iraq. There is also a picture of a dog who served in the military as a mascot in the 1940s.
“There’s been a tremendous amount of people coming in and expressing their gratitude for doing it. There’s one guy who comes everyday and looks at them, and he just can’t get over all the people that are in there, especially the older ones, and just how nice it is,” said Peacock. “He says he’s never seen anything like that in that magnitude before.”
There is a story behind every picture whether it’s from the person who placed the photo in the display or whether it’s from someone who walks by and recognizes an old friend’s picture. Peacock said that he and his staff have heard countless stories of how the military display brings back memories.
“The really neat thing about it is especially with a lot of the older ones and even some of the newer ones, when the people bring them in, there’s a story,” said Peacock. “There’s a story behind every picture out there.”
For everyone who hasn’t seen the display, there is still about a month or so that it will be in the window. With the warm and sunny weather in the near future, Peacock said the display will soon have to be taken down only because the sun will damage the photographs. He said anything left in the display case for too long becomes faded by the sun, and the business unfortunately has found that out first hand by leaving a sign in there before.
Also, if the popularity of the window continues to grow, and more and more people continue to send photographs in, there is the possibility the window will run out of space and another business in town would generously have to display the overflow of pictures. This would be a huge job since the Columbia Ancillary Services staff has done such a remarkable job so far in spending countless hours in making the display boards for the photographs, typing out each label to go along with every picture and with the general organization of the project.
“If it continues to grow, we’ll need another business in town to step up and take the overflow because we’re getting very crowded, and we don’t want to turn anyone away, especially after it’s gone this far,” said Peacock.
If anyone would like to contact Columbia Ancillary Services Inc. the number is 1-800-475-4425.
