Two steps forward

Wrapped up. Grannie Annie and her host of volunteers packed wrapped and sent 320 care packages to the troops with her Adopt a Chaplain project. Our postal service, the locals doing extra duty, ships all those boxes of cheer to the east coast. From there, on a space available basis, our US Air Force flies them on to their destinations in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Egypt. The ones destined to Korea go a similar western route. According to emails from her Chaplains none have arrived as of yet. No problem the goal is to have them arrive before Christmas to carry the message that they are loved by a bunch of patriots back home. Grannie sending care packages to her seven present Chaplains will continue on a much smaller scale starting in January until each returns back home. Big reorganization is in the works for next year’s projects.

Step two has been clearing the home of Grannie’s recently deceased best friend of some 64 years. Connie did well in life and purchased nice things to surround her. Never married, no children and no family close by to pass on all those cherished items. So naturally Grannie Annie stepped forward because “That is what Connie would want her to do”. An “open house” Estate Sale at a later, to be announced, date is in the works. Listen up because all the items are really special and you will want to participate.

All you readers of my column may have detected that aviation has been a love of my life. Just a little behind the love for my life partner, Ann, now Grannie Annie, who has been first in all things. Aviation is many things. There is the thrill of just being airborne and enjoying the splendid countryside ever changing below. The achievement of flying across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to destinations in Europe and the Far East. Yes even combat missions, or as close to combat as an airborne tanker gets, in Vietnam. Flying to Greenland and pulling duty beyond the Arctic Circle on the world’s largest island. Touching down in every state of the union and yes including Alaska and Hawaii. It has been quite a trip!

Another part of aviation that somehow touched my psyche was instructing, sharing my love of aviation by teaching others to fly. For this long time flight instructor there is no greater thrill than seeing the look of pure joy radiating self-confidence when a student taxies back in after going solo for the first time. It is a giant step and an experience that no pilot ever forgets. The learning continues but each person is forever changed by that life altering experience.

This past week on separate occasions a person has come to me to say thank you for sharing my love of aviation with someone important in their life. The first was a mom whose son is in college. He called her at 9:00 in the morning. “That never happens!” she said. He just wanted to tell her how thrilled that his chosen major, Aviation Studies, is so much fun and how happy he is pursuing it. One proud mama and one happy flight instructor with the memory of teaching a gregarious young man to fly and just maybe sharing a dream.

The second was the parents of one of my former students who after learning to fly and graduating from high school joined the Navy. Not just another swabby this chap pursued special forces and became qualified in underwater demolition. Dive deep and disarm one of our enemy’s mines. Since then he has used his GI Bill to earn a college degree and is now doing the day to day job of flight instructing in a civilian flight school. He tells his folks he loves it and they wanted to share.

Now I want to share an experience that one of my Air Force boom operators related to me one evening when we were pulling alert duty during the Cold War. This gent was a WWII veteran, one of many I had the pleasure of serving with as a young pilot. He wasn’t the best of crewmembers and I considered him really old as he was perhaps 45 years of age some 20 years my senior at the time.

Eighteen years old this lithe young guy was a tail gunner in a B-24. They were on a mission deep into Romania with the goal of bombing the German held oil refinery at Ploesti. On the run into the target his aircraft took an anti-aircraft round into their bomb bay and promptly blew up. Somehow the aft section of the fuselage and the tail surfaces where he was riding continued to glide in a stabilized manner and he, the sole survivor of the crew then was able to bail out and land safely by parachute. He hid out and by night started walking back toward the American lines.

Eighteen years old, hiding out by day and walking all night he successfully headed back home living off the land for as I remember for several months. He told that his major concern was how he was going to cross the Rhine because he’d never learned to swim. That part of Romania was rural and the practice was for the farmers to live in small villages, no rural homes, and go out as a group to work the land. When a far distance from the town the group, both men and women, would just bed down where they were for the night. Well one night my friend the gunner walked into a group of sleeping farmers who promptly captured him and next day escorted him to the local jail. He said that was the scariest part of the whole adventure because the jailer, about age ninety years old and white mustachioed, kept pointing his muzzle loader rifle at him yelling and threatening to kill. It was almost a relief to be turned over to their Nazi overseers. He then ended the war as a P.O.W. according to him a rather unpleasant experience. It was indeed a privilege to serve with such men brought into my life through aviation.

Enjoy family and friends during the unique American holiday, Thanksgiving.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail