After seeing an ad in the local newspaper, my wife and I decided to bypass the City’s July 4th event and take our children and two neighbors and their children in three vehicles to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Great Lakes, Illinois in Lake County to celebrate USA’s 232 years of independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain (July 4, 1776). This was the 1st time since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001 that the Naval Training Station has held a 4th of July celebration open to the general public. Because of this, the security at the Station was thorough but not too intrusive or time consuming; although, random searches of vehicles were done for guns and explosives and guard/explosive sniffing dogs were used. The children were fascinated by this process and had a myriad of questions about becoming a Sailor or Marine. Traffic control to the vast amount of parking available was the best we have ever experienced at any big event.
As we left our vehicle we were greeted by the sounds from the rock band that was playing in the bandstand in the central area where food & beverage and game booths were set-up, not to mention the Farris wheel, tilt-a-whirl and an assortment of rides for children of all ages had been set up. Although, it was crowed, crowd control was excellent. We found a spot and laid out a blankets and lawn chairs which served as our own control center to see the fireworks later in the evening.
Not only did the children enjoy the rides and food, there was the Navy Museum to see and many pieces on military equipment, including a rocket lunching vehicle and camouflaged Hummers. One Marine tent even had full military backpacks, which weighed 40 lbs for the kids to put on to see how hard it was to carry. Most kids just said “Wow.”
After the rock bands were done and before the fireworks, the military band gave over an hour salute to the members of our armed forces. Everyone looked so proud, a true coming together of everyone bound together by love and respect for the men and women who risk their lives in defense of our great Nation.
Everyone in our group made it back to our central command center to watch the fireworks, which were truly spectacular. Not to mention the very moving music through a multitude of loud speakers blaring out some great patriotic tunes like - Proud to be an American – Born in the USA.
All in all, we all had a great time and plan to do this again next year.

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