Field Trip Friday (A combo pack!)

Part 1:

We took Pastor Dad's Daddy to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Museum yesterday. We had a lovely time eating lunch together and shopping at the B/X, although I'm not sure it was wise for us to take the Bear into a place that has discounted prices on electronics! His papaw promised to go back with him if the Bear ever saves enough money to make such purchases. Today he was just content to get some new earbuds for his iPod.

The educational portion of this field trip came a bit later when we stopped by the museum. My father-in-law is a Korean War veteran who rarely speaks of his service, and for good reason. He was destined to be wounded and evacuated. That's about all we know. Or should I say, knew.

Here are the three generations of men who let me tag along while they discussed the features of various warplanes:

When we walked into the World War 2 display my father-in-law was unexpectedly startled by the B-29 "Superfortress" we encountered. He said he once had a bad experience when a B-29 pilot saw movement on a hill in Korea and mistook him and his buddies for the enemy. He was in the army and at that time the U. S. Army and the Air Force were literally not on the same wavelength when it came to radio communications. Someone finally managed to get a message through to call off the airstrike before my father-in-law and the rest were hit. He said he could see the pilot sitting in the cockpit much like the mannequin of today, only higher, of course.

The particular B-29 we encountered in the museum was The Bockscar that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. At that moment the three of us who heard my father-in-law's wartime memory looked like a verbal bombshell had just been dropped on us! We stared at each other with our mouths and eyes wide open. He came close to being killed by friendly fire!

There were a few other pieces of information gleaned today. Perhaps it is important to the man who spent most of his life trying to forget his wartime experiences that the rest of us do not.

May we learn our lesson well.