Walmart Commercial is El Paso Strong

If you've sat through a television commercial break lately, you may have noticed a Walmart ad with an instrumental piano version of the classic Elton John song “Rocket Man” playing in the background.

What you might have missed is a visual reference to El Paso in the form of a billboard message that characterized the bond many El Pasoans felt after the horrible Aug. 3 mass shooting.

About 38 seconds into the ad, titled “Live Better Together” and posted below, while the voice-over talks about “the strength of each community” it serves, an image of a sign reading “We are resilient, we are strong, we are El Paso, we stand together” is flashed on the screen for a couple of seconds.

The photo is of a message that was put up outside the Luby’s across from Cielo Vista Mall the day after the tragedy. It was one of many that became a prominent part of the city’s landscape for months following the shooting.

On billboards, murals, and especially on t-shirts, mottos such as ‘El Paso Strong’ became a rallying cry for our community and helped the city move forward and begin to heal.