Читать книгу Flight of the Forgotten - Mark A. Vance - Страница 9

As I stood on the observation deck watching the site in front of me, I was in absolute awe. With my mother holding my hand tightly, I peered ahead through the heavy metal-railing and stared in speechless reverence as dozens of sleek jet fighters thundered out of the heavens. When their wheels eventually touched the runway, each fighter suddenly produced the most brilliantly colored drag chute imaginable and roared to a howling stop. The entire scene was like a holy event. There were orange ones, purple ones, red ones; every color of the rainbow was represented. It was the most incredible thing I could imagine at the tender age of six.

All of it had something to do with a far away place called Cuba and the threat of a war that had hung over our house for days. I still remember how the television upset my dad whenever the word “draft” was mentioned and how my dad certainly didn’t want that “draft” happening to him again.

Aside from the threat of a war, I was as happy as could be on the airport observation deck watching Air Force jet fighters returning to earth. Deep inside me, a feeling I didn’t really understand was beginning to stir, as the jets dropped out of the clouds and I heard their engines rumble across the airport. It was magical, mystical, almost holy and yet at the same time strangely familiar. Not the jets of course, they were new to the setting. But the airport itself seemed strangely familiar, like I had known it before and was just now suddenly rediscovering it.

“This is for you when you grow up.” Buster’s voice proclaimed beside me. “Someday you’ll be a jet pilot too.” he insisted as I listened intently. It was all perfectly natural to me by this time. I had grown accustomed to my dead uncle’s spiritual comings and goings.

Minutes later, when my mother managed to pull me away from the railing, I remember turning back repeatedly for a last look at that majestic scene, unable to take my eyes off it and upset at the thought of leaving it behind. Once we were inside the terminal building though, another revelation was about to take place, as I stared ahead again in absolute wonder. There, inside the terminal building, were dozens of men in bright orange flight suits moving purposefully toward the exit as everyone else seemed to fade into the background. They were America’s “knights of the air”, in big black boots, “g” suits, flight helmets and parachutes as my mother dragged me along behind her, mesmerized. Watching those pilots in fascination, I had become dead weight on her arm. I thought of Buster again and his insistence that my destiny was to become a jet pilot. Inside, I could feel a lump rising in my throat as I continued to stare.

What majestic beings they were, larger than life, exuding confidence as they strode through the airport terminal. To me, they represented everything good, everything American, as I realized very quickly that they were the same men controlling the howling machines outside.

If it’s possible in one very brief youthful moment to make a lifetime career decision, I believe I made mine that October day in 1962 at the Billings International Airport. Whatever it took, I was going to be a jet pilot when I grew up. I didn’t really know why I wanted to be one. That didn’t seem to matter at the time. I only knew that those jets held excitement and glamour for me like nothing else on earth.