SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) - A Savannah doctor was told not to sing the national anthem during a Delta flight that was carrying home the remains of a fallen Green Beret from Toombs County, Georgia.
When Pamela Gaudry learned that former Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright was on her flight, she and other passengers made an agreement to sing the national anthem as they waited for soldiers to unload his casket.
Gaudry said a flight attendant put a stop to the plans.
"I said, 'it's the national anthem' and she said 'it is against company policy to do that and so we are going to land and everbody is going to stay in their seats and be quiet,'" Gaudry said.
In a video that has since gone viral on social media, Gaudry said she wished she had the courage to sing despite the flight staff's remarks.
"I'm humiliated by my lack of courage to sing the national anthem in my own country on American soil with a deceased soldier on the plane. I just sat there with tears rolling down my face," she said. "Hundreds of thousands of people now know that Dustin Wright died for our country and there were a lot of people on that plane that wanted to honor him. Hundreds of thousands of people are praying for this family now that weren't."
Gaudry said she was contacted by Delta after the incident and told that the airline has no such policy in place.
"Delta has contacted me – no money or free tickets – and this is not their policy," she wrote on Facebook. "Evidently, they had a flight attendant that made some bad decisions in trying to make this situation go away."
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