Project White Horse Forum

Boundary Condition #2 (1)

November 14, 1910, Eugene Ely makes the first take off from a ship from a wooden platform on the bow of the USS Birmingham; December 23, 1910 LT. T.G. Ellyson reports to the Glenn Curtis Aviation Camp at North Island, as the first naval officer to undergo flight training; 18 January 1911, Ely lands on a specially built platform aboard the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania. 8 May, 1911, Captain W.I. Chambers requisitions its first airplane. That day becomes the official birthday of Naval Aviation. We’ll be celebrating our 100th this coming year.

 Naval Aviator #1: Lt. T.G. Ellyson

The Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association - River Rats – asked if I had anything for their winter issue of MiG Sweep as a lead for further Naval Aviation articles throughout the year.  I offered up the December1999 piece I put together called Ghosts of Christmas Past: Fly Navy, the Best Always Have, and feel honored to have it published as Naval Aviation’s birthday year begins.  The  River Rats were started under Air Force General Robin Olds in Thailand in ’66-67 and original membership required combat missions in Route Pack Six, North Vietnam along the Red River which ran through Hanoi and Haiphong. It’s still heavy Air Force, but you gotta give them credit here for honoring their Navy members, herritage, and Naval Aviation’s 100th birthday celebration.

The magazine will be in print latter this month, but is on-line for members, so I sent out the PDF to some.  And while there is an official website and many formal events are planned all over the country througout the year, my intent for 2011, starting with “Ghosts” is to find and post stories of Naval Aviators and aircraft carriers, some you may recognize as part of established history, but others probably have been told only on Friday nights, beer or young Scotch in hand, in the Cubi Point or Miramar or Oceana O’Club bar or maybe in Hong Kong, Naples or Sinagapore. And these are the ones that made the history possible, trust me I’m a doctor, make that a Naval Aviator.  And just maybe out of war and remembrance, there’ll be a useful  intersection related to decision making in crisis.  We’ll have to see.

Boris sends:

God bless the United States of America and all its fighting men and women.

Merry Christmas

The Ghosts of Christmas Past…Fly Navy, the BEST Always Have

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Tags: Fly Navy 100Years, TOPGUN

Boundary Condition #1 (1)

The idea of Intersectional ideas – those resulting from combining concepts from multiple fields or areas of specialization gained through education and experience – has been previously introduced with it’s own PWH section. This is the first of several year ending posts intended to set the stage for intersectional discussions for 2011. Seth Borenstein and Julie Reed Bell note that 10 natural disasters claimed a quarter-million lives in 2010. Discussion of resilient communities, developing a culture of preparedness, decision making in crisis, and next year’s topic “unconventional crisis” seems most appropriate don’t you think?

This was the year the Earth struck back.

Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 — the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.

Consider:

How deadly? Through Nov. 30, nearly 260,000 people died in natural disasters in 2010, compared to 15,000 in 2009

How extreme? After strong early year blizzards — nicknamed Snowmageddon — paralyzed the U.S. mid-Atlantic and record snowfalls hit Russia and China, the temperature turned to broil – the year may go down as the hottest on record worldwide or at the very least in the top three

How costly? Disasters caused $222 billion in economic losses in 2010 — more than Hong Kong’s economy

How weird? A volcano in Iceland paralyzed air traffic for days in Europe, disrupting travel for more than 7 million people. In a 24-hour period in October, Indonesia got the trifecta of a deadly magnitude 7.7 earthquake, a tsunami that killed more than 500 people and a volcano that caused more than 390,000 people to flee. That’s after flooding, landslides and more quakes killed hundreds earlier in the year. And in the United States, FEMA declared a record number of major disasters, 79 as of Dec. 14. The average year has 34. A list of day-by-day disasters in 2010 compiled by the AP runs 64 printed pages long

And put man in the equation, what then? It was also a year of man-made technological catastrophes. BP’s busted oil well caused 172 million gallons to gush into the Gulf of Mexico. Mining disasters — men trapped deep in the Earth — caused dozens of deaths in tragic collapses in West Virginia, China and New Zealand. The fortunate miners in Chile who survived 69 days underground provided the feel good story of the year.

Please read “2010′s world gone wild: Quakes, floods, blizzards” by Seth Borenstein and Julie Reed Bell from Associated Press, Sunday December 19, 2010. Continue Reading »

Tags: Culture of Preparedness, Essential Elements of Information, resilient communities, worst case disasters

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty: 

Specialist Salvatore A. Giunta distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action with an armed enemy in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, on October 25, 2007….

An article about the “focus” of current awarding of the Medal of Honor has appeared here and here with  heated disagreement such as this on the Blackfive Blog here.  The distinction drawn by the author of The Feminization of the Medal of Honor,  Bryan Fischer, contributing editor of The Moral Liberal and  Director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at the American Family Association is troubling. There are multiple flaws in his logic – questioning whether now the Medal is only awarded for saving of life, vice for actions in attacking and killing the enemy – but the most important is that he simply does not understand the concept of the Medal of Honor, nor the element that links all who have received it.

While it is far beyond me to provide the correct distinction, I believe doing so to be important and that in this controversy lies an opportunity for all of us to reflect and learn. I have found no better discussion than the following  few words from “On Heroes and Heroism,” the January 30, 1991 Forestal Lecture at the United States Naval Academy by James Bond Stockdale, Vice Admiral, United States Navy, Retired, recipient of the Medal of Honor for actions as senior officer while a prisoner of war in North Vietnam:

To the Midshipmen:

By way of your professional education I’ll throw in the fact that the phrase “above and beyond the call of duty,” which must be included in the citation, must be literally true, not just as we hear it in a manner of speaking.  Literally, the phrase means that the act for which the medal is awarded must be beyond the concept of “duty,” an act the recipient could not be properly ordered to perform.  There are some very prestigious medals for heroic performance of duty out there – but this one is reserved only for acts that a person, often without conscious forethought, finds himself doing outside the law (I don’t mean illegally, I mean extra legally, beyond the law), outside the rules of procedure, outside what a decent person would ever feel justified in ordering him to do…

In sociological terms, the society (Congressional Medal of Honor Society) is a diverse group… But to categorize them in what I might call “fitness report” language gets you off on a completely wrong track.  These guys all have one big thing in common:  They will not accept the status quo if it does not meet their standards.  They all have short fuses when predicaments, as they see them, are not tolerable.  For an instant or an hour or a month, each of them has stood up and turned the world around.  “It’s not right that this ticking hand grenade should kill everybody in this foxhole.”  “It’s not right that this company of marines surounded on this mountain top by the Chosin Reservoir should wither and freeze and surrender!  We’re going to break out of here!” “It’s not right that I should bring harm to my fellow prisoners by letting myself be forced to inform on them.”

Nobody gets this medal for his words or his attitude or his consistent high-quality judgement or reliability.  He gets it for a specific act. (And it’s not something he can try to get.)  It all centers on this one impulse:  “No by God,” “Not me,” “Over my dead body.”

 In this sense Sal Giunta’s, Jim Stockdale’s, and Audie Murphy’s act for which they received the Congressional Medal of Honor are in perfect harmony.   Extraordinary and selfless, the actions of these men cannot be parsed as to life saving as compared to  defensive or offensive, or any other distinguisment.  Nor is the medal a linear extrapolation of degree of bravery from the next higest, such as the Navy Cross.  It stands on an entirely different plane. The act, the medal, and the men who receive it are indeed above and beyond.

For more on the thinking of James Stockdale see Wapedia, the Academy of Achievement Interview, the official website, and his book containing the Forrestal Lecture to the Naval Academy Midshipmen. 

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16 November, 2010: The Congressional Medal of Honor

Staff Sergeant Salvatore A. Giunta, United States Army

Tags: Essential Elements of Information, War and Remembrance

Veterans Day 2010

In high school, Joleta McNelis was never far away from a man she had never met. She carried Lt. John “Jack” Ensch in her heart — and on her wrist.  Aside from his name, the only thing McNelis knew about Ensch was the date his fighter jet was shot down over North Vietnam: 8-25-72. It was etched under his name on the metal bracelet she bought when she was 14.

Three months earlier, on the day Jack Ensch and Mugs McKeown became double “MIG killers” - the 23rd of May 1972 - I logged my 25th combat mission as one of the strike aircraft they, with flight school buddy wingman Rookie Rabb in their F-4 Phantoms, were protecting. Ensch’s squadron,VF-161, were readyroom next door neighbors to my A-7 squadron , VA-56 Champs.  Mugs would move on shortly to be commanding officer of TOPGUN and Jack would become a POW that August.

When Ensch arrived there (Hanoi Hilton) in August 1972, he brought news that he passed along to his fellow prisoners through tap codes between cells: People across America were wearing bracelets with their names on them. “They were dumbfounded,” Ensch said.

USS Midway and Carrier Airwing Five had sailed from Alameda California on the 10th of April 1972, two months earlier than planned, missing crucial aspects of our training and in record time – seven weeks – we were off the coast of Vietnam, beginning combat missions on 29 April and going “up North” with the SAMs and MIGs within ten days. That May for Midway was very instructive for a lot of young men wearing “wings of gold” in combat for the first time.  Our first missions seemed like something out of WWII and French battlefields. We weren’t bombing illusive Viet Cong targets in a jungle, rather we were fighting massed troops with tanks centered around the town of An Loc. Known as the Easter Offensive, North Vietnam’s General Giap had mounted a major conventional war type offensive into South Vietnam. As operations re-focused on putting pressure on North Vietnam, we flew mining missions to Haiphong Harbor, and other coastal waterways.  Flying cover for those strikes, Ensch’s Phantom squadron shot down a covey of MIGs. I flew my first “Alpha Strike”(30 or so plane major strike) to a little place called the Than Hoa Bridge.  We saw everything but the kitchen sink coming flying up that day.  Indeed my great bud Floo and I had a SAM go right between us, so close you could read the Russian markings – fortunately for us they did not turn out to be either the ”writing on the wall” or the harbinger of names on a bracelet.

 By the time Midway aircrews flew those missions in 1972,  most of us were under no illusions about how the country felt about the war and indeed sometimes about us – the Yankee air pirate “war criminals.” The air war, particularly over North Vietnam had long been a pawn in Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara’s flawed strategy of war.  The “stick and carrot” ploy having failed, President Nixon pulled off the gloves that Spring and sent Air Force and Navy pilots back “down town” – Route Pack Six, Hanoi, Haiphong, Thud Ridge, the Red River Valley. 

No one has deemed us the “greatest generation,” but  we didn’t much care then or now.  We were proud to be American fighting men, we loved our country as much as any from any time since the Revolutionary War, we were well trained, really  loved being Naval Aviators and that special aspect flying off of carriers, and despite all too real and rationale fear, relished the challenge – as Right Stuff author Tom Wolfe  described – of “jousting with SAM and Charlie.” Most of all, we simply liked being around the kind of people who chose to do that kind of stuff. And truth be known, we knew we were fighting not to win a war but to gain position strong enough for Nixon and Kissinger to negotiate the U.S. out of Vietnam.  That meant bringing home those “kind of people we liked being around” who currently enjoyed the hospitality of North Vietnam residing in the Hanoi Hilton, our POWs.

One of those POWs, Paul Galanti (the Life Magazine “birdman”), shot down in an A-4 Skyhawk on 17 June 1966, was best friend of my squadron commanding officer Lew Chatham. 

In a time honored tradition for fighter aircraft, the Skipper’s name was painted on the side of the cockpit of NF 401, as was each pilot’s name down the pecking order on squadron aircraft. Chatham had Paul’s name painted under his own.  Indeed, a POW name was stenciled on all Champ aircraft under each of our names.  The  picture below is of me manning up in our operations officer’s aircraft NF 403 showing Navy POW Capt Mel Moore’s name.  Moore was an A-4 pilot and Executive Officer of VA-192, shot down on 11 March 1967 while flying a surface to air missile suppression or Ironhand mission.  As far as I know, the VA-56 Champs were the only Navy or Air Force squadron to place POW names on their aircraft. We knew for what and for whom we were fighting. 

The vietnam War was an extremely devisive period for America. But as Jack Anton wrote in the Los Angeles Times on November 4th, “The plight of the POWs gave people a way to separate their feelings toward policymakers from their feelings toward those who fought in the war — a shift in public attitude still evident today. Whatever people think of U.S. policy on Iraq and Afghanistan, support for the troops remains strong.  So, too, do the connections made by Vietnam-era bracelet wearers. … More than 5 million POW/MIA bracelets were sold for $2.50 to $3 apiece in the early 1970s. … Thirty-seven years after the wars end, the Defense Department‘s Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office receives requests for information on former POWs or relatives of missing servicemen nearly every day.”

This post was originally intended to be a short link to Anton’s article, which being in the La Times, many of you would not see.  “Vietnam war bracelets come full circle,” on the front page of all things, caught me by surprise.  It intertwines the story  of how the bracelets came to be  with stories of POWs like Jack Ensch and the people who wore their bracelets, some as teenagers. Ensch said he is still struck by the outpouring of goodwill. “Even those people who were against the Vietnam War could identify with us being held captive there — the torture and the mistreatment. Nobody could argue that wasn’t wrong,” he said. “I think it was a collective learning experience for our society.” Anton’s article is well worth your time to  read and I offer my thanks to him for writing it.

If the Vietnam War had one good aspect, it was that our citizens relearned that what you think of war or a particular war should not reflect on what you think and how you treat the warfighter. No one cheered service men coming through airports in those days – they do now. No one lined the streets for miles for a soldier’s funeral, or placed American Flags along the route then – they do now. Something that was not right, now is. Once again we honor our veterans – all of them.

Similar to what I  noted several years ago in the Ghosts of Christmas Past;Memories of Fly Navy, Anton’s bracelet story generated one of those flashback/reflection moments and caused me to recall a comment by my golfing partner and retired Navy Phantom puke John “Dancing Bear” Evans. He reflected one day that with no disrespect meant to the “greatest generation,”  the WWII guys went off to war, did their business of warfare and did it exceptionally well, but with a country strongly behind them. The Vietnam warriors were no less brave, also did their country’s biding, but did it not only in the hostile combat environment but returned to a hostile environment at home. They indeed deserve recognition as a very great generation.

 As we honor all our veterans, I suggest to you a separate moment of thought for those who indeed stood alone. I for one am proud to have shared the St Crispin’s Day Agincourt “band of brothers” moment with you.

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother

 So on this Veterans Day 2010, here’s a cold one to the Vietnam War band of brothers!

Project White Horse 084640 and Boris send.

Tags: Fly Navy 100Years, TOPGUN, War and Remembrance

In the 234 years of writing and speeches about America -  what it means, what it offers its citizens, what it does,  should do and stand for – by Presidents, Generals, Admirals, poets, the press, observers, citizens, and leaders – none are more compelling and important than the final sentence of the Declaration of Independence. Yet, on the 4th of July, 1776, even as the Declaration was adopted and before the words were delivered to General Washington and the Continental Army, the British Army having retreated from Boston, now landed in force in New York, severely outnumbering Washington’s Army.  In retreat the Continental Army barely escaped a flanking entrapment at Long Island, and by late October had suffered two more defeats at Harlem Heights and White Planes.

As winter began and the British settled into winter quarters, with these successive defeats, the dominant positioning held by the British, battle losses by the Continental Army, plus the ending of militia commitments, could it be expected that the necessary thousands of troops would reenlist in the spring of 1777?  As the Continental Army encamped along the Delaware River on December 8th, finishing the long retreat from New York, Washington was now  considered an indecisive commander by many, some signers of the Declaration had gone over to the British, the Continental Congress had abandoned Philadelphia;  the General could see the army evaporating before his eyes.  The promise of the victory at Boston and the words of July were within a breath of being but  a small footnote in history.

Washington sent his most trusted agents into Philadelphia and New Jersey to enjoin the leaders to raise troops. In mid-December he wrote to Lund Washington, “Our only dependence now is upon the speedy enlistment of a new army.  If this fails , I think the game is pretty near up.” Few new recruits were found.

But Washington was not beaten, knowing fully the consequences, along with General Nathanael Greene,  he makes the plans to cross the Delaware in the middle of the night and attack the Hessian garrison at Trenton.  He writes “… but necessity, dire necessity, will, nay must, justify an attempt.” General Washington  has made the decision- for the army and a nation.

Americans all, know the story of the incredible game changing December 26th victory against the Hessians at Trenton, but the more telling story is not that of the battle, but rather it is of the “march.”  Planned with three attacking elements, two are unaccomplished because of ice in the Delaware River.  Breaking camp at two in the afternoon, the conditions of the river and the winter storm cost three hours in the Delaware crossing. Given the need for surprise and a dawn attack, it would have not been considered cowardly to abandon the attack.  Washington never hesitated, explaining later to John Hancock, ” I well knew we could not reach Trenton before day was fairly broke, but … I was determined to push on at all events.”

In victory there were only two American casualties – both men freezing to death during the march.

The most well known painting of the Christmas night movement to Trenton depicts General Washington as bold leader standing at his boat’s bow as the army crosses the Delaware.  The cover of 1776by David McCullough is adorned with a representation of Washington accepting the surrender of the Hessian commander.  But in viewing  the above little known painting of General Washington observing the beleaguered, ill outfitted Continental Army as it staggers through the cold, sleet and snow taking the whole of the night before reaching Trenton and attacking in a snow storm three hours later than planned, one requires little imagination to guess Washington’s mind.  How heavy was the burden of the multiple  defeats, knowing there might not even be an army come the spring, knowing that defeat here most certainly would be the end to the revolution, and indeed, how heavy on his mind was the responsibility created by the words of the July 4th Declaration?

The audacious decision to attack across an icy river in the worst of winter weather resulted in a victory that made a piece of paper - expressing with some most excellent words  an incredible concept –  a living thing, an ideal we celebrate for the 234th time.  For me, the essence of decision making  and leadership is not to be seen  in the depiction of victory, but rather here  in perspective of General George Washington in the snow as his rag-tag Continental Army moves to battle, his decision completely in the balance.  Over time, the painting presented above has grown to be my favorite representation of American History, compelling as possibly representing the singularly most significant event in our history to this day. Without Trenton there would have been no “Spirit of 76″ out of the 4th of July.

We celebrate our country’s birthday in the warmth of summer recalling the day we declared our right as free and independent states, the day the signers pledged their lives, fortune and sacred honor, but we would do well to also  recall a bitter cold Christmas night, a general and an army that made it so.

Happy Birthday America

Note: Sources for this article are 1776 by David McCullough and 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present – The World’s Major Battles and How They Shaped History by Paul K. Davis

The story of interest over the past days in regard to Rolling Stone’s “The Runaway General –  Stanley McChrystal, Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House” does not go down easily, for more than just the obvious reasons.  I am reminded of General Rupert Smith’s comment used in the completing post for the core What Kind of War series:

… we are living in a world of confrontations and conflicts rather than one of war and peace; one in which the clear categories of security and defence – the basic purposes for which force is used – have merged… This is no longer industrial war… absolute and clear threats in recognizable groupings, and… stable political contexts for operations… The threats … are of and amongst the people – in the flesh and in the media – and it is there that the fight takes place. (My emphasis added)

Systems disruption occurred or created – how and for what reason or no reason?  Now that the crisis has passed – in short McChrystal gone, General Petraeus confirmed – it would  seems a good time to consider other aspects in the context of “what kind of war is it” with emphasis that Project White Horse 084640 asks you to look at conflict in this century in conjunction with  an overarching framework that also includes the impact of catastrophic disasters, globalization, and information technology.  And then asks, first, are we in a century of unconventional crisis, and how do we make decisions in severe crisis? We may never understand why Rolling Stone, nor why a four star general and staff acted as they did, but PWH suggests, the authors below can be read with six threads in mind that will remain both over there and over here:

1. War, warfare, violence, and conflict in this century
2. How we view, categorize, and respond to crisis
3. Control and impact of the narrative
4. Impact of the information sphere on organizational response, the media, rumor, how we think, how we decide
5. System perturbation, purposeful or unintended, in a system-of-system world existing in a state of unstable equilibrium
6. Leadership in complex environments

Over the jump, 10 articles from CNN, Foreign Policy, World Politics Review, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, World Policy Institute, and Military.Com

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Tags: 4GW, Essential Elements of Information, Terrorism

Battle of Midway, Commanding Officer, USS Enterprise, Serial 0133 of 8 June 1942

At Sea June 8, 1942
From: The Commanding Officer.
To: The Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet
Via: Commander Task Force Sixteen.
(Rear Admiral R.A. Spruance, U.S. Navy).
Subject: Battle of Midway Island, June 4 – 6, 1942 — Report of.
1.) The attack delivered upon enemy carriers by the torpedo squadrons of our forces is believed to be without parallel for determined and courageous action in the face of overwhelming odds. These crews were observed to commence their attack against heavy anti-aircraft fire from the enemy carriers and supporting vessels while opposed by enemy Zero fighters in large numbers. The enemy fighter opposition was so strong and effective that ten torpedo planes out of fourteen of Torpedo Squadron SIX did not return. It is recommended that the Navy Cross be awarded to each pilot and gunner of Torpedo Squadron SIX who participated in this bold and heroic attack. A separate letter containing details of all aircraft attacks and specific recommendations for awards will be submitted. …

7.) It is extremely difficult to determine the extent of the damage inflicted upon the enemy by Enterprise, as the air groups of all carriers, as well as land based aircraft at Midway, participated in continuous attacks on enemy units throughout the three days action. Based upon reports available to Enterprise, it is estimated the following damage was inflicted upon the enemy:
3 CV’s sunk.
1 CV on fire and badly damaged (probably sank night of June 5).
1 CA wrecked and abandoned.
3 CA heavily bombed.
3 DD sunk.

As a very young Lieutenant Junior Grade, I often kidded LCDR Pat Patterson that I didn’t know anyone so old they’d been in the Battle of Midway, so could he tell me what it was like. His reply – “What do I know, I was 19 years old and saw the whole thing backwards?” When he retired, I was the good humor man for his dinner. I got a copy of the Victory at Sea episode (3 parts) on Midway and ran it backwards.

In the Battle of Midway, Pat was a Petty Officer Third Class SBD gunner flying from the carrier Enterprise. (From Enterprise message: Aircraft 6B15, Ens. G.H. Goldsmith, A-V(N), USNR. PATTERSON, J.W., 387 23 15, ARM3c, USN) He said his pilot was a terrible dive bomber, but on that day as they pulled off the run, he saw their bomb hit dead center on the Japanese carrier flight deck. As fate would have it, they wound up landing on Yorktown rather than Enterprise just prior to the attack on Yorktown. As he unsaddled from the SBD Dauntless, a CDR ran out of the island, grabbed him and started accusing him of leading the Japanese strike force back to them. It took a bit but Pat finally got the CDR to recognize that he didn’t control much as the gunner in the back seat. Shortly thereafter he went over the side as Yorktown was ordered abandoned. No more had he hit the water, than a sailor landed right on top of him who couldn’t swim and almost drowned them both. Pat gave a quick dog paddling lesson and the rest is history.

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Tags: Fly Navy 100Years, War and Remembrance

If one is to discuss leadership, what it requires to “decide and act” in severe crisis, the journey  should start here.

A real love for the hard battle, knowing it offers the opportunity to be at your best when the best is required.

Competiveness: John R Wooden

 More reading about Coach Wooden and his “pyramid of success:”

The Official John R. Wooden site

Biography at Wikipedia

Pyramid of Sucess (PDF printable)

and finally

 ”Failing to prepare is preparing to fail“  in his own words follow the “Favorite maxims” tab to “never stress winning”

Tags: Culture of Preparedness, Essential Elements of Information, resilient communities

Addendum to the previous post “Testimony of Pilot: I am a dragon, America the beautiful like you will never know”

For Marie Rossi,  Pat Patterson, Sam Dorn, Gary Shank, Smokey Tolbert, John Lindahl, Gene Goodrow, Mike Bixel, Mike McCormick,  Ray Donnelly, Arlo Clark, Harry Hicks, Chuck Andres, and Randy Anderson. 

You are remembered – You live on -  Great Santini’s all.

Tags: War and Remembrance

I think ordinary Americans do a pretty good job remembering  our vets and in  particular, those who have given their lives in service of this country.  I like hearing the stories about folks in airports recognizing those in uniform as they return home.  But its always been important for me, on a very  personal level to recall the stories of friends who didn’t come home, stories of some who did some pretty interesting things in service of country, and of those whose time has passed but will never be forgotten.  And so over the last few years I’ve used Project White Horse on these special days to provide their stories for readers and for my own reflection and a way of saying “thanks”.  A man, a woman live on as long as they are rememembered.  

This year, something a little different – a carve out from the short story Testimony of Pilot by  just recently deceased Southern writer Barry Hannah.  The central character, Ard Quadberry, is Hannah taking literary liscense with his long time friend John Quisenberry, who is a USNA grad and Vietnam time frame fighter pilot in F-8 Crusaders.  ‘Quiz’ schooled me in the F-8,  is a long time friend, and gave me an early copy of Hannah’s Airships in 1971.

While the scene involves a Navy fighter pilot, for me, it represents the process of going to war.  The fighter, the helmet only story telling vehicles. Ard Quadberry is airman, sailor, soldier, marine.   In a few words this excerpt captures the sense of what young men and women feel and must do as they steel themselves for war.  Further, Liliian’s words reflect the confusion, the sense of helplessness and loss and sorrow of young wives and girl friends as they observe those they love make that transition, moving away- physically, mentally, emotionally – compartmentalization being necessary for survival.  And all the while, underneath it all is the heightened recognition of love of country and insight about America and being an American in service of country that comes with offering all in war. These few words are the essence of Memorial Day for me. 

 From Airships by Barry Hannah

A-7 from VA-56, USS Midway over North Vietnam, 1972

 Through Lilian I got the word that Quadberry was out of Annapolis and now flying jets off the Bonhomme Richard, an aircraft carrier headed for Vietnam. He telegrammed her that he would set down at the Jackson airport at ten o’clock one night. So Lilian and I were out there waiting. It was a familiar place to her. She was a stewardess and her loops were mainly in the South. She wore a beige raincoat, had red sandals on her feet; I was in a black turtleneck and corduroy jacket, feeling significant, so significant I could barely stand it. I’d already made myself the lead writer at Gordon-Marx Advertising in Jackson. I hadn’t seen Lilian in a year. Her eyes were strained, no longer the bright blue things they were when she was a pious beauty. We drank coffee together. I loved her. As far as I knew, she’d been faithful to Quadberry.

He came down in an F-something Navy jet right on the dot of ten. She ran out on the airport pavement to meet him. I saw her crawl up the ladder. Quadberry never got out of the plane. I could see him in his blue helmet. Lilian backed down the ladder. Then Quadberry had the cockpit cover him again. He turned the plane around so its flaming red end was at us. He took it down the runway. We saw him leap out into the night at the middle of the runway going west, toward San Diego and the Bonhomme Richard. Lilian was crying.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He said, ‘I am a dragon. America the beautiful, like you will never know.’ He wanted to give you a message. He was glad you were here.”

“What was the message?”

“The same thing. ‘I am a dragon. America the beautiful, like you will never know.’”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Not a thing.”

“Did he express any love toward you?”

“He wasn’t Ard. He was somebody with a sneer in a helmet.”

“He’s going to war, Lilian.”

“I asked him to kiss me and he told me to get off the plane, he was firing up and it was dangerous.”

“Arden is going to war. He’s just on his way to Vietnam and he wanted us to know that. It wasn’t just him he wanted us to see. It was him in the jet he wanted us to see. He is that black jet. You can’t kiss an airplane”

“And what are we supposed to do?” cried sweet Lilian.

“We’ve just got to hang around. He didn’t have to lift off and disappear straight up like that. That was to tell us how he isn’t with us anymore.’’

Post script: For Marie Rossi,  Pat Patterson, Sam Dorn, Gary Shank, Smokey Tolbert, John Lindahl, Gene Goodrow, Mike Bixel, Mike McCormick,  Ray Donnelly, Arlo Clark, Harry Hicks, Chuck Andres, and Randy Anderson.  You live on -  Great Santini’s all.

Tags: War and Remembrance