A Midwesterner ’s work ethic and the luck to be in the right place at the right time are the two things Brandon Braam is crediting for what he expects to be a surreal experience today.
Braam, 30, will join about 10,000 people marching in the presidential inauguration parade. He’s one of three students at the Seafarers International Union in Piney Point, Md., chosen to represent the school in the parade.
If students from the other schools he’s attended — Washington Elementary in Mankato, Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School in New Ulm and Minnesota State University — get a chance to watch the event today, they might want to try spotting their fellow alumnus. He said he’ll be close to the middle of the parade, marching with a larger group of labor union members.
“They’re telling us there’s a pretty good chance we’ll be on television,” Braam said during a telephone interview Monday.
“I’m not expecting to do anything like this in my lifetime again. It’s fantastic. It’s more than a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The only things like it that I can comprehend in my head are the Million Man March or one of the Vietnam protests.”
Inauguration planners anticipate one of the largest crowds ever at the Capitol’s National Mall. Estimates span from 1 million to 4 million people.
That means Braam is planning for a long day today. It will start with a 3 a.m. ride to the outskirts of Washington, D.C., then a military escort to the Pentagon. It takes 90 minutes to two hours to get from Piney Point to the Capitol when traffic is normal.
Once the parade starts, he will march for about a mile and a half. He and his two classmates will be on their own after that.
“We’ve got a driver and a car that the union has set up for us, but traffic will be shut down for 10 to 12 miles around the Capitol,” Braam said. “ We’re hoping to get out to the suburbs by subway and rendezvous with our driver.
“They’re trying to tell us we’ll be home by 7 or 8 p.m. I’m thinking that’s wishful thinking.”
Braam, who is studying to be a member of the Merchant Marine, will be in a military-style dress uniform with a military haircut. When his school was initially asked to provide students for the parade, a list of about a dozen people gathered. Thorough background checks by the FBI and other government agencies narrowed the list to Braam and two others.
The presidential election was still about a month off when Braam was accepted into the school in October. So he had no idea his time at the military school would include the honor of marching for President-elect Barack Obama on Inauguration Day.
If Braam completes the training he has started, he will be qualified to captain large ships. He’s already spent several years working on fishing boats in Alaska, so he’s used to being at sea for long periods of time.
He already owns a house in Duluth, so his goal is to work on a Great Lakes ore ship or tugboat.
Braam has already earned a finance degree from MSU, but he decided against following in the footsteps of his accountant father, Gene.
The elder Braam said he’s known about his son’s role in the national event for about a month but was told to keep it under wraps until now.
“I think its pretty cool,” Gene Braam said. “It will be an adventure for him.”
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