Voice From the Past
What I am trying to point out here, somewhat unsuccessfully, is that for a period of 30 years, although I thought about those days of combat occasionally, I had no contact whatsoever with any of the principals.
All that changed in 1998 when, on a Sunday afternoon, a disembodied voice on the telephone inquired whether I was Jolly 09, the pilot who had rescued Kenny Fields in 1968. Wow, what a surprise! Little did I know that both Craig and Kaye had conspired together to instigate this call.
Here is what happened—Craig (who was flying H-60’s for the Army in Korea) noticed the Jolly Green website and sent an email to Kaye to see if she had found it. Kaye visited there, dug a little deeper and found a note that they were looking for information about me!
She reported this back to Craig, who got in contact with George Marrett (one of the Sandy A-1 pilots who had escorted me). It was George who called me. What he had to say was that the principals involved in that rescue were meeting at Nellis AFB to brief the Air Force on the mission. Would I like to attend?
That’s how Kaye and I found ourselves at Nellis, with me meeting face to face with Kenny Fields (the Navy pilot I picked up) after 30 years. Things went well, and a month or so later, everyone was invited to Pope AFB to brief the east coast folks. This time I went by myself, once again meeting with the gang.
The following year (1999), I retired from teaching and we began looking around to see where we wanted to spend our retirement years. We looked at places in our town, the mountains and by the ocean without finding anything that fully satisfied. I had told Kaye that, since she had faithfully accompanied me during 24 years of Air Force service (23 different homes, remember), I would let her make the final decision.
I finally came to realize that, although, since being born and raised there I had a soft spot in my heart for it, California had just gotten too crowded and hectic. So, we began looking--expanding our search to Arizona and Oregon. Then there came a day when Kaye announced that she wanted to move to Abilene, Kansas.
I was shocked. Craig had been trying for years to get us to move to Abilene, but although we had visited often, neither of us had ever seriously considered living there. Kaye said that our two grandchildren were growing up (4th and 10th grades at the time) and she wanted to be a grandmother to them while they were still young.
Enough for now. Next, our move to Abilene, a precusor to the writing of the book.
Dave
All that changed in 1998 when, on a Sunday afternoon, a disembodied voice on the telephone inquired whether I was Jolly 09, the pilot who had rescued Kenny Fields in 1968. Wow, what a surprise! Little did I know that both Craig and Kaye had conspired together to instigate this call.
Here is what happened—Craig (who was flying H-60’s for the Army in Korea) noticed the Jolly Green website and sent an email to Kaye to see if she had found it. Kaye visited there, dug a little deeper and found a note that they were looking for information about me!
She reported this back to Craig, who got in contact with George Marrett (one of the Sandy A-1 pilots who had escorted me). It was George who called me. What he had to say was that the principals involved in that rescue were meeting at Nellis AFB to brief the Air Force on the mission. Would I like to attend?
That’s how Kaye and I found ourselves at Nellis, with me meeting face to face with Kenny Fields (the Navy pilot I picked up) after 30 years. Things went well, and a month or so later, everyone was invited to Pope AFB to brief the east coast folks. This time I went by myself, once again meeting with the gang.
The following year (1999), I retired from teaching and we began looking around to see where we wanted to spend our retirement years. We looked at places in our town, the mountains and by the ocean without finding anything that fully satisfied. I had told Kaye that, since she had faithfully accompanied me during 24 years of Air Force service (23 different homes, remember), I would let her make the final decision.
I finally came to realize that, although, since being born and raised there I had a soft spot in my heart for it, California had just gotten too crowded and hectic. So, we began looking--expanding our search to Arizona and Oregon. Then there came a day when Kaye announced that she wanted to move to Abilene, Kansas.
I was shocked. Craig had been trying for years to get us to move to Abilene, but although we had visited often, neither of us had ever seriously considered living there. Kaye said that our two grandchildren were growing up (4th and 10th grades at the time) and she wanted to be a grandmother to them while they were still young.
Enough for now. Next, our move to Abilene, a precusor to the writing of the book.
Dave
posted by Dave | 9:52 AM
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