Eagle I
Pre-takeoff checklist
No, this is not about an absentee father, or a father who died when I was a child too young to remember him. This is about a father who is very much alive, if not completely well. It is about my father, the World War II B-24 navigator.
Like many veterans of that war, he was generally loath to talk about his experiences, although he had eagerly enlisted, like so many others of that generation. Although I knew from an early age that he had been involved in this remarkable piece of history, he shared his war stories sparingly. Maybe because I was just a kid at the time, I always liked the one about how after the war, the occupying GIs gave some Japanese kids some ice cream and, because their systems were not used to dairy, they all became sick. I remember, too, when one night, perhaps in a rare moment of nostalgia, he pulled out boxes full of photos that he had taken during his service, and shared with my sister and me anecdotes about some of the men in them. Many of them, of course, never made it back to the States. I'm not sure I was old enough to comprehend the gravity of it all, but I do remember those photos, those faces.
My father, because of his young age, was able to enlist only at the tail end of the war. Germany had already surrendered. My father ended up serving in the Pacific Theater.
Like many children, I suppose, I have had a somewhat complicated relationship with my parents over the years. Geographically and politically, we grew quite far apart. In childhood, however, my father and I were like kindred spirits, made all the more remarkable by the fact that I was a daughter, and not the son that he, like most men, had probably hoped for. I guess it made things easier that I was a tomboy. I have fond memories of spending hours with my father in our backyard in Indiana, tossing the football or softball around, or fishing together, his favorite activity.
Next week my father will turn 90, and my mother will turn 90 the month after. Recently my sister sent me a copy of my father's war diary. I didn't know it even existed, and neither did she, until, while helping my parents clean out their house to prepare it for sale, she found it and started reading. My father wanted to throw it out. How typical. Fortunately, my sister prevailed, and I have spent the last couple of days reading it, learning so much about the father I have always felt so close to, yet in many ways never knew.
I am the only pilot in my extended family, and I'd like to think maybe I got the aviation gene from my father, although after the war he apparently never showed much of an interest in flying, and was far more likely to drive to a destination than to fly to it. Still, when I read today about how his first mission aboard a B-24 was scrubbed because of a "mag drop," I couldn't help but smile at the connection.
So why am I writing this? Because I'm guessing many of you have similar stories, which I hope you'll share, and because I just wanted to say, thanks Dad, for everything you've done, for me and for my country.
Like many veterans of that war, he was generally loath to talk about his experiences, although he had eagerly enlisted, like so many others of that generation. Although I knew from an early age that he had been involved in this remarkable piece of history, he shared his war stories sparingly. Maybe because I was just a kid at the time, I always liked the one about how after the war, the occupying GIs gave some Japanese kids some ice cream and, because their systems were not used to dairy, they all became sick. I remember, too, when one night, perhaps in a rare moment of nostalgia, he pulled out boxes full of photos that he had taken during his service, and shared with my sister and me anecdotes about some of the men in them. Many of them, of course, never made it back to the States. I'm not sure I was old enough to comprehend the gravity of it all, but I do remember those photos, those faces.
My father, because of his young age, was able to enlist only at the tail end of the war. Germany had already surrendered. My father ended up serving in the Pacific Theater.
Like many children, I suppose, I have had a somewhat complicated relationship with my parents over the years. Geographically and politically, we grew quite far apart. In childhood, however, my father and I were like kindred spirits, made all the more remarkable by the fact that I was a daughter, and not the son that he, like most men, had probably hoped for. I guess it made things easier that I was a tomboy. I have fond memories of spending hours with my father in our backyard in Indiana, tossing the football or softball around, or fishing together, his favorite activity.
Next week my father will turn 90, and my mother will turn 90 the month after. Recently my sister sent me a copy of my father's war diary. I didn't know it even existed, and neither did she, until, while helping my parents clean out their house to prepare it for sale, she found it and started reading. My father wanted to throw it out. How typical. Fortunately, my sister prevailed, and I have spent the last couple of days reading it, learning so much about the father I have always felt so close to, yet in many ways never knew.
I am the only pilot in my extended family, and I'd like to think maybe I got the aviation gene from my father, although after the war he apparently never showed much of an interest in flying, and was far more likely to drive to a destination than to fly to it. Still, when I read today about how his first mission aboard a B-24 was scrubbed because of a "mag drop," I couldn't help but smile at the connection.
So why am I writing this? Because I'm guessing many of you have similar stories, which I hope you'll share, and because I just wanted to say, thanks Dad, for everything you've done, for me and for my country.
