Thanks for welcoming me back to this blog, without judgement for abandoning it. "Writers Block" is what you call it when you're either too lazy or too afraid to write because you think it's not interesting enough to read. Anyway, I'm back.
Dad’s military days were well before my time. It wasn’t really a major topic of
conversation around the house as I remember it.
AS a boy, I knew he’d flown, but I didn’t know any details. He didn’t discuss them. Not some huge secret, but rather, just a
period of life that seemed to have happened and then passed. My earliest recollections were of the stein
that sat on a shelf in the china cabinet.
Two brothers born in Nebraska, while the rest of us were born in the
south. There was also the picture of a
young, thin, short haired man wearing an old timey looking headset that sat a
dresser at Grandmother’s house. What
seemed the most poignant to my memory were the blue uniforms that hung in the
upstairs closet, shoulders adorned with silver bars, chest with wings and a
name tag reading BUMPUS. They were
relics of a thousand years ago, it seemed.
As I grew older, I noticed more. The books.
His knowledge of airplanes. His
attitudes about war in the nuclear age.
His patriotism. Christmas cards
from men who referred to him as, “Bill”. I thought I knew all of my parent’s friends. We were a railroad family, and as such, there
was almost a “mafia like” closeness to families of similar backgrounds, but I
knew that there was another chapter in their life. I was blessed with a mind more inquiring than
your average child. As I asked
questions, I learned more. I learned the
names of places like Bainbridge, Georgia, Williams, Arizona, Wichita, Kansas,
Lincoln, Nebraska. Places like Goose Bay,
Labrador, and Greenham Common.
And Arkhangelsk.
Acronyms too numerous to recount. I learned about Strategic Air Command. I learned about the USAF Aviation Cadet Program. I heard the story of a young man working at
the Buick Dealership on Main Street in Jackson when an Air Force Officer came
in to have seatbelts installed on his car.
That young man asked where he’d gotten seatbelts and he was told that
they were from an airplane and that he was a pilot. The young man mentioned how much he’d have
loved to be a pilot and the love for planes he’d developed as a boy watching
the trainers from McKellar Field fly over as they trained during World War II,
but since he didn’t have a college education, the option of going into the Air
Force as a pilot was futile. The officer
then told him that wasn’t the case. With
a high school diploma, he could enter the cadets. That boy, clocked out for lunch, walked
across the street to the Federal Building, and joined the Air Force.
Dad, graduated with the cadet program class 56-G and in
January of 1956, he became a commissioned officer in the United States Air
Force. A pilot. He received an
assignment in bombers, the latest technology from Boeing, designed for one
thing, to put the destructive force of one bomb, stronger than a million
conventional weapons on one single city in the Soviet Union.
He did his job and came home a veteran, with two baby boys
and went right to work. Case closed.
As I said earlier, a casual observer would think the time
Pop spent in uniform was but a small piece of who he was. As time went on, he either decided to talk
more, or perhaps my ears became more in tuned to what he said. Stories emerged, and the impact on the life
of a 22 year old boy with a hydrogen bomb strapped to his ass became more
evident. The horror or war is real,
whether the war was hot or Cold.
Several years back, Pop rekindled old relationships with the
other boys of Pilot Training Class 56-G.
They were more than just a couple of addresses and a phone number or two
that were stuffed in a filing cabinet.
They started to talk and decided a reunion was in order. Those ancient friendships again erupted and
became new again. Dad and his core of
friends were back together again.
Albie, Porter, Ralph, Terry, Bob, Bill, and many many others…
They found time to talk (and sometimes lie) about old
escapades, duty stations, missions, girls, and adventure. Like Pop, some of them had spent their normal
enlistment time and had moved on to the private work force, and family
businesses. Others had stayed in the
service, racking up long and distinguished war records in Vietnam. Others never came home.
I write from a terminal at Bush Airport in Houston, sitting
next to my wife as we await or connecting flight to Colorado Springs. There, I have the honor of meeting up with many
of the gray headed young warriors of 56-G as they attend their final reunion on
this, the 60th year of saving the world from annihilation. I eagerly anticipate hearing the old stories
again, the laughter and the inevitable tears that will accompany it. This will be Angie’s first opportunity to be
with many of them, and to put names and faces with the stories. Our plane leaves shortly, and Pop will pick
us up from the airport when we arrive.
If you’ll indulge, I hope to share some of these moments
with you as the week goes on. Follow along here and at #USAF56G
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