JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Robert Watkins and his daughter Gisela Bell showed up at the Jacksonville National Cemetery on Tuesday to honor a member of their family.
Richard Watkins was Robert Watkins' brother and passed away at 73 years old on Dec. 3.
“He was really outgoing,” Bell said. “Very loving.”
Richard is a U.S. Army veteran that Robert Watkins and Bell said didn’t have many other family members.
“He would call me in the middle of the day just to chat,” Bell said. “And ask how I was doing. How my children were doing. And just to talk about his day. I’m going to miss those phone calls.”
So when Bell arrived with her father at the cemetery, she was expecting it to just be the two of them.
She thought it would be a quiet and small sending-off of a loved one.
Then cars started lining up behind them.
Dozens of them.
Motorcycle engines revved.
Suddenly, dozens of people were lined up and ready to honor a brother, an uncle and a brother in arms.
“I am simply blown away,” Robert said. “I mean never this response not this huge response.”
Robert had put a message on Facebook in a veterans group, asking fellow veterans to support his brother.
And they did.
“Proud I served,” Robert said. “I know somebody has my back.”
As the trumpet played and the guns went off, strangers gathered to send off a man most of them never knew.
“I just want to say thank you to all the veterans and non-veterans that showed up,” Robert said. “This was truly awesome.”
It was a tribute and turnout that took a day of sadness and sprinkled in a little bit of joy.
“I know that he is looking down on us and he is tickled pink,” Bell said. “I know we can’t believe the turnout. I know that he’s smiling.”