We still don't do fear.... Right?

Ten years ago, Harley-Davidson bought a full page ad in the USA Today to try to change attitudes during the financial crisis that had befallen the country.  It was of a young man on an '08 Crossbones plastered across a red and white striped background.  Above him, written in a way that made it appear as an American flag.  The blue field held the words, "We don't do fear".  The rest of the text, written in red (of course.  All gospel is written in red) declared, "Over the last 105 years in the saddle, we've seen wars, conflicts, depression, resistance, and revolutions.  We've watched a thousands hand-wrenching pundits disappear in our rear-view mirror. But every time, this country has come out stronger than before. Because chrome and asphalt put distance between you and whatever the world can throw at you. Freedom and wind outlast hard times. And the rumble of an engine drowns out all the spin on the evening news. If 105 years have proved one thing, it;s that fear sucks and it doesn't last long.".  The capstone of the ad were the words, "Screw it, Let's Ride.".

That ad worked wonders for the MoCo.  It reengaged a distracted customer base and reminded people that our country is strong because its people are strong.  It reminded people that their mindset dictated their actions, and reactions to what was going on around them.  Our country did persevere.  And Harley-Davidson Nation indeed did say, Screw it, Let's Ride.  And they rode.

We rode all the way up to 2018 and now here we are.  Here's what else is still here.  Wars.  Conflicts.  Depression.  Resistance.  Revolution.  Along with that we are up to our noses in political polarization, our children being mowed down, scandal, hate, division....  We live in the age of instant communication, yet we rarely communicate with our fellow man on a personal level.  We believe lies and ignore truths.  We don't react to news.  We dictate news to fit our agenda.  We yell at each other and hear no one.  We think we have the answers but don't give a damn whether we actually listen to the questions.  We give credence to every outlandish theory that some stranger spews but are doubtful of the things our heart tells us.

We listen to memes instead of neighbors.  We look at our phones more than our family.  The give and take of civil discourse is now, "I'm right and F&ck you".  We are divided by who we voted for, the color of our skin, where we go to church or whether we even choose to.  We are divided by who we love and what we believe.  Bitterly divided.

I'm often left wondering if we still are our brothers keeper.  Do we have time enough in our daily lives to love?  To listen?  To live?  Are we happy with the example we set for our children or is it just easier to call the younger generation useless...soft....lazy...stupid?

What is it going to take for us to get back engaged with our lives?  What will it take for us to be happy and content with the world around us?  We will always have conflict.  We will always deal with things that depress us.  Revolution and Resistance are as American as apple pie, but how much of either are you truly getting done sitting on your ass or buried in your phone?  We NEED a revolution!  One that brings us back to why our time on this Earth is important!

I do love how the 2008 Harley-Davidson ad brought the solutions of the world and dumped them on the open road and left us with the thought that all we had to do was go and find them.  I'm also not so naive that I think a marketing slogan is going to bring us out of this National funk in which we seem to wallow.

But what if it could?  What if we truly did start to put focus on things that brought us together? 

What if we started to realize the worth of our fellow humans and the value of real interaction with them?  What if we put more time into loving each other for the things we have in common, rather than hating for our differences? 

What if we truly started treating each other as our own brothers and sisters?  What would the world look like if we got back to seeing it in person rather than through a screen?  What if we were to relearn the art of communication?

What if we were to actually be able to change the world?

I like to think that those of us who live in that small percentage of the world who ride on 2 wheels understand this.  Our passion is centered around experiences.  Real, visceral experiences. 

We seek out the beauty and danger of the world.  We understand that our time here is limited and that if we truly want to experience what God has given us here on Earth, we'd better go and get it.  When we ride, we know who our brothers and sisters are.  They ride next to us.  Our brothers and sisters are not categorized by their income, their color, their politics.  We wave at each other as we pass as if we've known each other all our lives.  We know more about them than some of our own family know about us.  We have a bond. We find the good in each other before we seek the bad.

We look out for each other.  We care about each other.  We stop on the side of the road when one of us is in need.  We come together.  We ride together.  We laugh together, and we mourn together.  We love each other, though we may not even know each others name.

Sounds a little corny, doesn't it.  Sounds like a weird little utopia, doesn't it.  The, "Yeah, but whaddabout"'s can try with all their power to say that things like I'm describing don't matter, but I firmly believe that they do.

What if everyone tried relating to each other in the manner which riders do?  What if we tried to all find common ground and love first?  What if we got off the couch, and out of the house and saw America? 

Could we change the world?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But it damn sure beats what we are doing now.

Thomas Paine wrote, "We have it in our power to change the world over".

We who ride can start by trying to look at every piece of the world through the same goggles we wear when we ride.

Maybe the rest of you can start acting more like motorcyclists.

Ride Safe, and with Purpose.

SMB

Quit hoping and start planning.

I didn’t have time….

I ran out of time….

There just wasn’t time for that….

I couldn’t find the time….

How many of you said this for one thing or another in 2017?  How many of you missed out on experiences because you thought one of these statements were gospel?  I did.

I can apply one, a few, and sometimes all of these statements applying to something I didn’t do in 2017.  I missed out on a lot of things because of it. 

Things with my wife.  Things with my kids.  Things just for myself. 

I missed out on books that I should’ve read, and people I should’ve spent more time with.  I fell short on projects I should’ve tackled and places I should’ve visited. 

Because of this, I suffered.  My family suffered.  This blog definitely suffered.

What about you? 

I had a lot of blessings in 2017.  I got to make a cross country bike trip with my family, including my 83 year old father.  We rode from Oakland CA up the Pacific Coast Highway into Oregon to Seattle and then back across Washington State, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and home.  It was magnificent and will be the subject of a future blog. 

I also was conspicuously cognizant that one person who wasn’t on that ride was the driving force as to why the rest of us were, and that was my big brother Dan.  The day we got home, Dan went into the hospital never to return home.  Another topic of another blog as well.

It’s January 2018.  Now is the time to “get your budget straight”.  Set yourself some goals and start making plans to achieve those goals.  What do you want to do?  Where to you want to go?  What relationships do you want to strengthen and which ones have run their course? 

Don’t find yourself in December 2018 in the same predicament that I was.  I should’ve taken that ride.  I should’ve paid that visit.  I should’ve had that conversation.  I should’ve told that person I loved them one more time. 

You are your greatest cheerleader and you are also your greatest detractor.  Make a decision to see which “You” that you are going to listen to more.  “But that ‘detractor’ in me is also the voice of reason.  It knows what I can do and what I can’t do”…  Partially true, but often that detractor in your brain thinks in terms of “all or nothing”.  That’s where the planning comes in.  You know what your responsibilities are.  You know your work schedule and your financial obligations.  So, perhaps this isn’t the year to make a 4-Corners of the USA ride.  That month off work just isn’t feasible at this stage.  I get it.  For most people, it’s not.  But if not now, when?  What would it take to be able to make that ride?  Start writing down the answers and slowly you’ll start finding the path to get there. 

Set goals.  Make plans.  Work those plans.

Let me know how you did come December.

Ride Safe, and with Purpose.

SMB

Don't miss an opportunity to tell your story, but to tell it, you have to first live it. A guest Blog by Kevin Blankenship

"We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there." 
- Pascal Mercier

Only once since the inception of this blog have I published the writings of someone else, a "guest blog".  However, as I read the words of my friend Kevin Blankenship and his story of a 10-day cross country road trip with his dad, I knew immediately that I wanted to share his words.  I don't know any of the back story other than what was written in two different Facebook postings made before and then after the trip, but we all know similar stories.  Kevin has captured the essence of both adventure and family.  We speak the same language.  Many of us do, but rarely do we capture in just a few words what Kevin has.  The road has a healing quality and this story is evidence of it. Enjoy.  

Ride Safe, and with Purpose.

SMB

A Forward.......

Way Back Wednesday?

Right about 40 years ago today mom, dad, and I flew home from Honolulu, HI and settled into McKenzie, TN. I guess that was our first "road trip" and we took quite a few more over the years until I was old enough to drive and started staying home, working, and skipping the summer trips.

Tomorrow me and the dude below, 40 years later, are starting a 20+ state, 6,000+ mile, two to three week road trip out west. I doubt we've been in a car together for more than an hour since '92ish and we went to Colorado. He's been packed for three or four days. I haven't even started packing yet. There's an "itinerary" of sorts. He's got a lot of places he wants to see and there's a few on there that I haven't been to yet like Devil's Tower, (Which I really regretted skipping my last road trip out west.), Teddy Roosevelt National Park, and a couple of others. For the most part it's "whatever" and "nowhere to go but everywhere."

Most I have been to once or twice like the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Glacier, Yellowstone, The Tetons, Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon, etc. But I haven't been with him. I plan to see some old friends, who I never know whether or not I'll see again, because when you've spent 20 years being a vagabond and rambling the country you make friends that you sometimes never see again. And I plan on stopping by to commune with the ghost of Hemingway in Ketchum, ID. It's been awhile since he and I have had a heart to heart.

I'm looking forward to this trip. I'm excited and it takes a lot to get me excited these days. I'm lucky and blessed to still have both of my parents and to have a relationship with them that means we can spend three weeks in a car together. I doubt there is anyone else I know that I could spend three weeks in a car with and not worry about one of us catching a flight home halfway through. I doubt either of us will ever be the same after this trip. You spend that much time around me, without a chance for escape, and I'm going to tell you some things you haven't heard before. It's just the way I work.

The photo albums full of his pictures from all over the world are a big part of why I have done things the way I have.

Like old Jack Kerouac said, “There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”

I couldn't write a better life.

P.S. Apparently I was a fan of pulling hair early in life. ;)

I'm glad some things haven't changed. It's worked out for me like everything else has.

A postlude....

I could list a bunch of numbers about how many miles, states, National Parks, Pterodactyls seen, Ibuprofen taken, etc... but I’m going to try to keep this short. That’s not easy for me. I like details.

I understand that I am very lucky to have both of my parents around still. I know I’m blessed to have the relationship that I do with my folks. A lot of my friends, Facebook or otherwise, aren’t as lucky. I know that I’m lucky to have lived in a way that allows me to just pick up and take off for 10 days on a cross country trip by car. I’m lucky to have friends all over the country, and world, that will give me a place to spend the night or longer. I get it, I’m lucky, and I’m blessed. I’m also lucky that most of the people that I have shared parts of my life with still talk to me and consider me a friend. People “go away” for various reasons and the vast majority of mine haven’t. I appreciate the ones that stayed, the ones that tell me they love me, smile when they see me, take their own time to spend time with me. It reminds me, that regardless of anything else, I must have done a few things right over the past 40 years.

My dad – We didn’t really get along all that well the first 20 years of my life. We fought and sometimes we fought hard. We’re too much alike. My mom always told me that and I understood it in some ways, no matter how much I denied it all. We’re both stubborn to a fault and we’re both given to a quiet nature that sometimes gets interrupted by loud bursts of passion. We're also both never wrong even when we disagree. When I left for Houston in 2000 something changed there and it has been changing ever since. I understood him more and I think he started to see more of himself in me than he had recognized previously. He wrote me a letter while I was there, the first and last, and it boiled down to, "I could always come home if I needed to or wanted to come home."

We’ve gotten along, for the most part, much better since then. And it gets better every year. We averaged 14 hours of driving for 9 straight days. We drove 42 hours, Thursday and Friday, and only stopped once for an hour. The rest of the time we caught a nap while the other drove. During that whole 18 state, 6,402 mile drive, we got snippy with each other one time outside of Salt Lake City.

We talked a lot, and as the trip went on, we talked less, but the silence was not uncomfortable. Somewhere in Montana he started saying out loud that he was missing my mom. You spend 41.5 years together, and are never apart for more than a day or two, and you get real used to seeing the other person every day. I let him think and he let me think.

I noticed him softening his stubbornness and always right with quieter discussion. I do the same. We drive the same. We think about how to get somewhere the same. He’s a big, soft, romantic, never meets a stranger, vagabond and so am I. I had no idea how much like him I really am, or at least I had never had it put in my face in living color so much before. We laughed a lot, we laughed at ourselves, and we laughed at each other.

The universe, God the comedian, the mountains, and a soft hearted woman or two have always been there exactly when I needed them to remind me to keep on doing what I’ve been doing. That it’s all worked out. That everything is alright, and it will be, until it ain’t.

So much for short.

One night, I don’t remember which, I was sitting outside of a cheap hotel in Livingston, WY. My belly was full of one of the best burgers I have ever eaten. Dad was inside, the air on full blast, snoring away. I was on the phone with one of the aforementioned reminders, and this happened.

“He just wants you to settle down.”

I thought about it for a moment and said, “I think he just wants me to settle down with someone who won’t expect me to settle down.”

She seemed a little struck by that and I was, too. It just popped into my brain and escaped out of my mouth. There was conversation behind the statement. Conversations with my dad about relationships, love, and getting to a point where you really don’t “need” anybody because you’ve made it just fine by yourself for a long damn time and always will. He wouldn’t trade his last 40 years for my last 20 and I wouldn’t trade mine for his. That being said, it’s really nice to be able to leave when you want, and go wherever you feel like going, and it’s just as nice to have someone soft to come home to when you’re back.

He got to go and I’ve got somewhere soft to visit in a few hours. Who knows how long his or mine will last. I don’t reckon it matters. The end of the story never matters as much as the beginning and middle.

Life is short, people. Its precious. It doesn’t have to be your dad or your mom. It doesn’t have to be your wife or husband. Just go somewhere, see something new, explore. Take someone you love with you. I’ve got a cemetery full of the "no longer here" inside of my head. You better believe that those ghosts of old friends, family, and one too many old lovers rattle the shit out of their chains some nights. I’ve also got a heart full of the same that are still here. I tell them about the ghosts and it keeps the ghosts quiet. They’re never all the way gone as long as you keep them alive.

What I’m saying is this – It’s your story. It’s up to you how you tell it. You’re in charge. Nothing can happen that has the power to take that away from you. You tell it well enough and even death is powerless because the ones you told will keep telling for you.

Y’all be good to each other. Be sweet and tender. Love somebody and allow yourself to be loved. The world is big and life is short. Enjoy all of it you can.

6,402 – 18 – 11 – 1 – 30

-Kevin Blankenship

Reflections on the 60th Anniversary of 56-G

Last night was the Farewell banquet for the 60^th Anniversary Reunion for USAF Pilot Training Class 56-G.  It was what you would expect to see at a veteran’s reunion.  A simple room with round tables adorned with flags and other patriotic décor.  The evening was emceed by my Dad’s old pal Ralph Clemens.  Ralph, besides being one of my favorite people in the world (the Chicago native shares my love of the Cubs), was Dad’s roommate and partner in crime all the way through pilot training.  Ralph stayed in the Air Force with flying time not only in SAC flying B-47s like my dad, but also B-52s and then a long stint in which he volunteered to step away from a relatively safe staff officers position to fly F-4 fighters in combat in Vietnam.  Ralph finally retired a full bird Colonel and lives near Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery. 

Jerry Bumpus and Ralph Clemens, 1956

Ralph Clemens and Jerry Bumpus, 2016

Ralph led the group in recognition of the organizers of the reunion, as well as some classic Clemens one-liners.  Bob Smith, Jim Devaney, and Joe Rogers made us all proud with how good pilots could march as they presented to colors for the Pledge of Allegiance.  I was beside myself with honor when my Dad and Ralph requested that I give the evening Invocation.  Angie and Katie were tasked with preparing the “Missing Man’s” table and Katie spoke to its significance.  She and I were the only speakers who hadn’t graduated with 56-G.  Don’t for one second think that was lost on me.    



Ralph explained that the night would be about Remembrance.  Remembrance of their deeds, and of those who were no longer with them.  He gave toasts to the United States of America, then to their fallen comrades, and finally to the Class of 56-G itself.  Then, we dined.  I had been requested to sit at one of the tables up front to be closer to the podium.  As that table started to fill with old friends who needed to be near each other, Angie and I happily repaired to what we termed, “The Kids Table”.  We laughed and visited and had a great time over dinner and drinks with the Lukasik boys, as well as Brad McLennan, another 56-G son and former Air Force Pilot himself.  We were the kids of the room and shared an interesting bond. 



The sounds of laughter and dinner were broken intermittently through the night by the clinking of a wine glass.  An old pilot would stand, and speak of one of their own who was no longer with us and a toast was raised to him.  Cheers, indeed.  The conversations would again commence, until the glass was clinked again.  This went on and on. Clink after clink.  Name after name.  Story after story.  Toast after toast. 



The night was about remembrance, indeed.


Bob Titzer (Bad-Ass Bob, as they have often referred to him) gave the keynote remarks.

"Bad-Ass" Bob, 1956

56-G first started having reunions back in 2000.  Bob Titzer initially came up with the idea.  Bob’s Air Force career was very similar to Dad’s.  Both found themselves in SAC, flying B-47s at Lincoln Air Force Base at Lincoln Nebraska.  Though they were in different wings, they still stayed close.  Bob left the service and became a successful engineer in Evansville, Indiana.  Well, Bob made a few phone calls and gathered a few more numbers and before you knew it, the group found themselves in San Antonio rekindling friendships. I was able to attend one in 2002 in Dayton, Ohio at the US Air Force Museum.  What a treat it was for me to be able to hear the stories of those great old planes straight from the mouths of the men who flew them. 


That was 14 years ago.  The reunions are getting fewer, and farther in between. 


Bob’s remarks last night included some stats.  There were nearly 400 young men that graduated as part of 56-G.  They had endured the same rigorous training, designed to weed out those who were not prepared for the job that the Air Force needed them to do.  They truly were exceptional.  Then he mentioned how many the class lost in service.  The numbers caused me to take a step back.  In either training accidents or in combat, 56-G lost nearly one in five of its graduates.  He then talked about how many have gone on since their active duty careers ended.



At the last reunion, nearly 50 members were in attendance.  This year….. 12.  Past reunions were chock full of activities.  Dances, nights of song and presentations.  Group excursions.  This year, aside from an impromptu trip out to an airplane museum, the schedule was much more relaxed.  The men of 56-G are aging, but they are far from elderly.  In past years, grand discussions of airplanes and flying, temporary duty stations, and war stories ruled the conversation.  This year, I noticed much more of the small, sidebar talks were about names.  People who are no longer here.  The reunion was not as much regaling past exploits as it was what Ralph described, about remembrance. 



What I still saw, in each of those 12 faces though…was the spark of a 22-year-old boy.  The recharged bond of shared experiences of adventure, excitement, duty, and yes, death.  They were wild and fierce.  They were the men the boys wanted to be and ones the girls wanted to be with. 

Though they have been separated by years and miles, they still were and continue to be comrades.  They are forever tied together.



Though we could still see it through our eyes, the gray hair is gone.  No one walked with stooped back.  Supplemental oxygen was replaced by high altitude mask.  They were warriors and young.  The fire to fly still burned within them.  These old men could still, and God knows would still heed the call.  Should an alert siren blow, they’d be the first to the flight line.  They would still put “warheads on foreheads” in southeast Asia.  They would still fly low and slow giving cover to the boys in the bush.  They would still cross the arctic circle and do the unthinkable, because its who they are. 



Their oath still stands. 



During a late night conversation, a couple of years ago, Dad really opened up to me about his experiences as a bomber pilot in the height of the Cold War.  His plane and crew had one job, to put a nuclear weapon on top of a city.  He did not set the policy.  He carried out the job.  I’ll go deeper into that talk another day, but he left me with a poem that was something along the lines of,

“Beware old men of what you ask young men to do, for they just well might do it”.

Jerry Bumpus-Warrior, 1956

Alas, the aging squadron of 56-G will no more be called to duty.  They were trained weapons, perfect machines.  Their day has passed and their front line usefulness obsoleted by youth and technology.  Yet, their mission was truly accomplished and as such, we are still free. 



What these men did is part of history.  Among the class of 56-G were the pilots who flew our POW’s home from Vietnam when they were released from the Hanoi Hilton.  A man who flew the SR-71 (who just happened to sit next to dad at dinner last night and promised to drop by to see me when he visits family in Waverly, Tennessee), men who flew hundreds of sorties over Vietnam and Cambodia.  Men like Bob Wikeen who when his F-86 had engine trouble over a populated area of New Jersey, elected not to bail out, but rather flew his broken bird over the ocean and to his death.  Men like Bernie Lukasik….

Last night was also Bernie's birthday.  You're damned right we sang for him.

These men saved the world.  This world still needs saving.  We all owe a them debt of gratitude. Those who are tasked with doing it today would do well to mimic these men, their spirit, their honor, and their accomplishments.

Men like Bill McDonald who did his time as an Army draftee during the Korean War, but still volunteered for the USAF and put in another 24 years in the cockpit.

Bill McDonald-1956

Bill McDonald, Final Flight-1979

Bill McDonald, Vietnam-1968

Jerry Bumpus and Bill McDonald-2016

Bill McDonald is a hero.  He kidded with me last night.  He said, “If we don’t hurry up, we can have our next reunion around a card table”. 

I’ll be there.  Hopefully it won’t be too many more years.  These boys still have stories to tell.

Ralph Clemens-1956

Ralph Clemens, Vietnam-1970

Ralph Clemens-2016

Terry Crain (left) and Jerry Bumpus (right)-1956

Terry Crain and Jerry Bumpus-2016

WE'VE DONE OUR HITCH IN HELL-from the 56-G Class Yearbook

I'm sitting here and thinking

Of the things I've left behind

And I have put down here on paper

What is running through my mind

We've marched a million miles or more

Look at our worn out feet

I know now that I should have joined

The lowly infantry

Our commandments were the Honor Code

The OTM our Bible

But a more unholy place than this

Would surely have no rival

And then there was the Tour-Path

That hated plot of ground

A fate worse than a weekend here

Is waiting to be found

The gigs were always plentiful

Some each day, as I recall

If demerit slips were dollars

I could buy the Taj Mahal

But there is one consolation

Gather closely while I tell

For when we die we'll go to heaven

For We've Done Our Hitch in Hell

The Girls were queens I must admit

There certainly were no bores

They came out every Friday night

And checked their brooms in at the door

We've flown in planes so ancient

That the Wrights would even scoff

The wings were held with braces

And patched all o'er with cloth

But when the final taps are blown

And we've laid aside lifes cares

We'll do our last parade

Upon those Shining Stairs

Our last Group Board will then be held

Outside St Peters Gates

Captain Trostle won't be there

For he has another fate

The Angels will all welcome us

And harps will start to play

We'll draw a million chit books

And spend them all one day

The Great Commanding Officer

Will smile on us and tell

Come, take the first seats, Gentlemen

For You've Done Your Hitch in Hell

God Bless the United States Air Force Pilot Training Class 56-G, both living and gone.

Ride Safe, and with Purpose.

Scott Bumpus

Proud son of Captain William Gerald Bumpus

United States Air Force

Pilot Training Class 56-G

My Invocation for 56-G

Our  Father,

Over 60 years ago, the men gathered here tonight, US Air Force Pilot Training Class 56-G and their classmates took an oath to defend our country and uphold our Constitution.  Their actions and deeds have made it possible for their children and grandchildren to live free, and safe.

Bless these men of 56-G who are gathered with us tonight.  Be with those who are unable to attend and share this fellowship, and let us never forget those brave young men who have gone on and paid the ultimate price for our nation.  Let their names and what they have done never be silent upon our lips.

 

Father, we also ask that you bless those men and women who wear the uniform and protect us still today, may they all be safe.

Father, continue to be with these warriors gathered here tonight, as they continue their mission on this Earth.  These men, who as John Magee so famously described,

“Have gone up the long, delirious burning blue… topped the wind swept heights with easy grace where never a lark or eagle flew- and while with silent lifting mind they’ve trod the high un trespassed sanctity of space, put out their hand and touched the face of God”…

Father, use this food to nourish us and guide us for your mission and your purpose.

In Jesus Name,

Amen

More about this remarkable night later. 

Ride Safe and with Purpose

The Brothers Lukasik..... A Story from 56-G.

Tonight, I had the pleasure of getting to meet Mark and David, the Lukasik brothers.  Their father, like mine, was a member of Pilot Training Class 56-G.  The Lukasik boys are partners in a restaurant in Fort Myers, Florida and rode their Harley’s all the way out here to the reunion in Colorado Springs. 

When we finished dinner, I took the opportunity to walk over to their table to visit a while, along with other children of 56-G vets.  Mark, like his father, was also an Air Force Veteran.  Over the flowing drinks, he held court with us, regaling us with stories of his hijinks as a cadet at the Air Force Academy (79TLCWB… yes.  This is an acronym for the AFA Class of 79, ‘The Last Class With Balls’), and the commandant who was a General named (aptly) Richard Head…. You can’t make this stuff up.  Mark’s brother David, put in over 20 years with the US Coast Guard.  I’m surrounded by patriots.

Their father wasn’t with us.  He was Captain Bernard F. Lukasik. 

“Bernie” Lukasik was a name I’d heard a hundred times when my dad would talk of the members of 56-G who’d paid the ultimate price.  On the 18^th of February, 1964, Captain Lukasik’s heroism earned him the Air Force Cross.

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Title 10, Section 8742, United States Code, takes pride in presenting the Air Force Cross (Posthumously) to Captain Bernard Francis Lukasik (AFSN: 0-48211), United States Air Force, for extraordinary heroism in military operations against an opposing armed force while serving with the 1st Air Commando Squadron, 34th Tactical Group, Bien Hoa Air Base, Vietnam, as a Advisor-Pilot of a T-28D aircraft on 18 February 1964. On that date, Captain Lukasik provided airpower against advancing Viet Cong guerrillas who were intent on capturing a Vietnamese airman who had bailed out of his burning aircraft.

Despite the danger of hostile gun fire, Captain Lukasik continuously flew his aircraft at extremely low level and remained in the area until he was satisfied that the safety of the downed airman was assured. Through his extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship, and aggressiveness in the face of hostile forces, Captain Lukasik reflected the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.

The next day, Bernie was shot down and killed while providing air cover against Viet Cong forces who were trying to capture a downed RVNAF airman.

Mark and I talked of his father, who was 28 years old when he was killed.  I asked Mark how old he was when it happened.  “I was 6”, he replied.  “I have great memories of dad”, he told me.  His brother David, however, was too young to have them.  “That’s why I bring him to these things”, Mark related, “So he’ll know.  So he can get a better sense of who dad was and where he came from”.

By this time in our conversation, David had left the table and gone to bed.  I told Mark about the trip that I’d taken Carter and Brandon on Spring before last, where we’d accompanied Dad on a guy’s trip to Washington, DC.  I told him of our trip to Arlington Cemetery and the short walk from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to Section 35, site 1427 which holds the remains of Captain Bernard F. Lukasik.  I showed him the picture where my sons posed with their Grandfather and his old friend, who left us way too soon. 

Very few words were exchanged at that point.  I wanted Mark to know that though his father left this world before my time, he was part of my thoughts and memories.  His service and sacrifice matters still, not just to him and his brother, but also to his old friends and comrades…. And to his country.  It didn’t stop with his father.  Their mother is also buried in that same plot, passing a mere 5 years after their father.  An uncle, Colonel Joseph Lukasik, USAF is also buried just feet away.

“My entire family is at Arlington”, Mark remarked. 

The Pilot Training Class 56-G did its part.  Tonight, I’ll remember Captain Bernard Lukasik…. And cherish the new friendship I share with his sons…those little boys he left behind in the early days of the Vietnam War.

 

Ride Safe, and With Purpose.

The Gray Haired Young Men of 56-G

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 60^th 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

Until Then.....Ride Safe and With Purpose.