TAMPA — On a dreary, gray Wednesday morning, the president of the United States hopped into a black sport utility vehicle and his lengthy motorcade sped away from the Hilton Tampa Downtown, down rain-soaked city streets, along the Selmon Expressway and finally through the gates of MacDill Air Force Base.
It would be a day of meeting with his top military commanders, the troops who serve on the front lines and students at the base elementary school who grow up knowing that the president can order mom, dad or both to deploy anywhere around the globe.
As White House staffers, security personnel and media waited outside the hotel for President Barack Obama, a woman under a blue-and-white umbrella stood in the downpour in front of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs and Tampa Salad Co. restaurants, across Tampa Street from the Hilton, serenading the motorcade.
At 9:36, the caravan of black SUVs, white vans and red fire equipment, led by a phalanx of motorcycles from local law enforcement agencies, worked its way toward the expressway, eventually speeding south down Dale Mabry Highway toward the base.
Police had blocked all the side streets along the route. And every so often, small groups of onlookers braved the precipitation to catch a fleeting glimpse of the leader of the free world.
Just 14 minutes after leaving the hotel, Obama arrived at Central Command for a briefing on the battle plan to attack and defeat the Sunni insurgent group Islamic State. At a conference room table, a smiling Obama sat between Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, to his right, and Army Gen. Lloyd Austin III, the man who would brief him on those plans.
Around noon, Obama delivered a 15-minute speech to about 1,200 troops that packed the base fitness center and to the larger world outside. The bottom line did not change. No U.S. ground combat forces in battle, the president said.
After the speech, Obama made a surprise visit to Tinker Elementary School, stopping to talk to two first-grade classes.
“I know that sometimes they have to be away,” he said to students, many having a parent or parents who deploy. “I want to say thank you to them, and I want to say thank you to you guys.”
Next door, in teacher Elizabeth Slagal’s class, a student shrugged his shoulders when asked what the president does.
Minutes later, Obama walked in. He shook hands with Slagal and her students, stopping to ask each his or her name.
One boy tried to ask a question but forgot what he was trying to say.
“That’s OK,” Obama said. “It happens to me, too, but when I do it the press makes fun of me.”
About 1:45 p.m., as Austin and Air Force Col. Daniel Tulley, the base commander, stood at attention in a light drizzle, Air Force One took off from MacDill, taking Obama back home.
PHOTO: President Barack Obama allows Tinker Elementary first-grader Edwin Donley to touch his hair after the student remarked how short the president’s hair was. CHRIS URSO/STAFF