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Who Will Remember The Heroes of Peace?

November 11, 2018 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

I post this every year on Veteran’s Day, because I think it matters.

It’s the best piece of writing I’ve ever read.

Of course, I’m a little prejudiced. 

It was written by my sister about our brother and our father.

My personal connection to our veterans has always been through my father, Frank, and my brother, Greg. They are buried a few steps from each other at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

A year after Greg was killed in a fighter jet crash near Ellington Field outside Houston, my sister Kathy wrote the following Veterans Day meditation. It was published in the Houston Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times and several other newspapers nationwide.

On Veterans Day over the years, I have read it on the radio and shared it online.

* * * * * * * * * * *

“Who Will Remember The Heroes of Peace?”

by Kathleen Simpson

Veterans Day 1981

The vast Texas sky was cloudless, silent. An Indian summer sun baked the rows of small white crosses. The honor guard dressed in Air Force blue raised the flag above the casket of the young pilot. Five times the jolt of rifles cracked the air. The bugler raised the trumpet to his lips. On the breeze the strains of “Taps” lingered, faltered, breathlessly faded away. From the widow and the mother, from the sisters and the brother, from the small sea of blue-dressed men and women, there was not a whimper to hear, not a sigh.

Suddenly the silence shattered. Thundering toward the grave of the young pilot, four Phantom fighter jets screamed across the sky. Once they circled low over the rows of small white crosses, over the small blue human sea. Racing again toward the grave site, one plane broke the formation, thrust its steely nose straight up into the sun and vanished.

It is a farewell reserved for heroes. For combat aces and high ranking officers of distinguished career, the acrobats of the air fly by. But the young pilot, who was my brother, had never flown into battle. His prayer was that he would never fly to kill. Educated in the classroom of war, he abhorred the lesson that the innocent are the ultimate victims of the bomb and the sword. When he flew an F-101 jet fighter of the Texas Air National Guard on October 22, 1980, he believed in his mission to protect the innocent with his quicksilver wings of peace.

But the winged horse my brother rode that day was destined to be a Pegasus of power and peril. Seconds after he lifted the huge machine into the air from Ellington Air Force Base, an explosion ripped part of the tail from the plane. On the ground below him a crowded subdivision lay in the path of the flaming, flailing craft. A horrified witness reported: “The jet banked steeply to the left, went into a steep climb and then fell into the open field. It looked to me like the pilot intentionally turned away to avoid hitting those houses.”

In the last 60 seconds of his life, my brother’s only thought must have been of the innocent people living in the innocent safety of their homes below him. The airplane burned into the dust of a pasture just 500 yards away from those homes. The investigators retrieved his helmet from the crash. They bequeathed it to his widow, who keeps it for their small son. Sleep well, brother Greg; your prayer is answered. Never will you fly to kill.

Sifting still through the wreckage of my grief, I wonder. On the day of the Armistice of the first global war – the war that Woodrow Wilson called the war to end all wars – I wonder about the price that the governments of this century have elected to pay in the purchase of peace.

I wonder about all the brave young warriors of this peace, men and women proud of their mission, honored by their duty to safeguard our shores. Do their spouses sleep soundly while they fly through the night? Do the children play fearlessly in the schoolyard as their fathers or mothers crawl into the missile hole at day? Who will remember the heroes of this peace?

A few feet from where my brother now rests, another pilot sleeps. This man, our father, also abhorred violence and war. But as a young man my father saw havoc in the skies above Europe. Dreams of the innocent, the faceless victims of the bombs that fell from his plane, haunted his sleep every night he lived.

Dreamless now, father and son together sleep. The old veteran of war shares the soil of liberty with the young veteran of peace.

Today, the 11th day of November, at the 11th hour in the morning, flags fall to half-staff across the country in honor of the nation’s veterans. The statesmen lay huge floral wreaths at the monuments of the nameless soldiers. The widows crown the crosses of their loved ones with garlands from their gardens. Silence falls for a moment over the burial grounds of the warriors.

Then cannon volley and bugles blare. It is festival time in the graveyard. The 5-year-old son of my dead brother cheers as the mighty Phantom jets scream their power across the sky. He delights in the pageant of the parade marching by. His mother takes his small hand in hers when she cries. What will she tell him when he asks her why?

38 years later, Greg’s flight jacket hangs in my closet

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Filed Under: America, Flying, grief, Heaven, Life, Love, Soul, Spirit Tagged With: Air Force, America, Flying, grief, Heaven, Heroes, Love, Soul, Spirit, Veterans, Veterans Day

I dread this day every year

October 22, 2018 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

That ominous day on the calendar.

I suspect most of us have one.

The day that takes you back.

In my case, it is the day that everything changed.

Tragedy rained from the sky.

October 22nd 1980.

It has been 38 years, but this day is always dark for me.

My brother Greg, piloting a fighter jet on a routine training mission with his weapons systems officer, ascended into the October sky from Ellington Field near Houston.

Their jet’s engines flamed out seconds after takeoff.

Training and instinct would demand they eject from the flailing jet immediately.

Except for one problem.

There was a neighborhood and schoolyard in their flight path.

Instead, they chose to pull the doomed aircraft sharply into an open field to their left.

And they were gone.

No lives other than the two young heroes were lost that morning.

But countless lives were affected forever.

Lives saved and lives grieving.

All these years later, still I grieve.

I dread this day every year.

But I’m thankful for my big brother, Greg.

And I dream of joining him in the sky one day.

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Filed Under: America, Autumn, Dreams, Feeling, Flying, Ghosts, grief, Heaven, Life, Love, Miracles, Soul, Spirit Tagged With: Air Force, Chris Duel, Flying, grief, Heaven, Icarus, Soul, Spirit, Veterans

The Last Time I Saw Greg

October 22, 2017 by Chris Duel 2 Comments

 

This is the last moment I saw my older brother Greg alive.

July 1980.

He’s goofing around and making all of us laugh, as he often did.

He was 31.

I was 19 as I took this photo.

I was a cadet at the Air Force Academy, aspiring to be a fighter pilot, like he was.

He had become an Air Force pilot like our father, who died when I was four.

We never know when we’re seeing someone we love for the last time.

We’re lulled into believing that there will be many more moments with them.

But this precious existence is fleeting.

On October 22nd 1980, Greg’s fighter jet’s engines flared out shortly after takeoff in East Texas.

Had he and his navigator ejected, the jet would have slammed into a neighborhood.

The two pilots chose to steer the flaming craft into an adjacent field instead.

That’s my brother, Greg.

Funny, Loving, Heroic.

It was 37 years ago today.

Seems like yesterday.

Seems like a million years ago.

Changed everything for countless people.

Damn, I miss him.

And I’m thankful to have had such a wonderful brother.

 

#ThisIsTheSacredMoment #BrothersOfTheSky #HighFlight

 

37 years later, Greg’s flight jacket hangs in my closet

(Above: Greg, his wife Mary Lou and children Taylor and Grant on the last day I saw him / Greg on Kelly AFB tarmac with F-100)

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Filed Under: America, Autumn, Feeling, Flying, grief, Heaven, Life, Love, Soul, Spirit Tagged With: #ThisIsTheSacredMoment, Flying, grief, Heaven, Love, Soul, Spirit

The Last Time I Saw Greg

October 22, 2016 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

Greg

This is the last moment I saw my older brother Greg alive.

July 1980.

He’s goofing around and making all of us laugh, as he often did.

He was 31.

I was 19 as I took this photo.

I was a cadet at the Air Force Academy, aspiring to be a fighter pilot, like he was.

He had become an Air Force pilot like our father, who died when I was four.

We never know when we’re seeing someone we love for the last time.

We’re lulled into believing that there will be many more moments with them.

But this precious existence is fleeting.

On October 22nd 1980, Greg’s fighter jet’s engines flared out shortly after takeoff in East Texas.

Had he and his navigator ejected, the jet would have slammed into a neighborhood.

The two pilots chose to steer the flaming craft into an adjacent field instead.

That’s my brother, Greg.

Funny, Loving, Heroic.

It was 36 years ago today.

Seems like yesterday.

Seems like a million years ago.

Changed everything for countless people.

Damn, I miss him.

And I’m thankful to have had such a wonderful brother.

 

#ThisIsTheSacredMoment #BrothersOfTheSky

 

36 years later, Greg's flight jacket hangs in my closet

36 years later, Greg’s flight jacket hangs in my closet

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Filed Under: America, Dreams, Flying, grief, Heaven, Life, Love, Soul, Spirit Tagged With: #BrothersOfTheSky, #ThisIsTheSacredMoment, Flying, grief, Soul, Spirit

Fly Closer to The Sun

January 2, 2015 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

FlyCloserToTheSun

In his book The Icarus Deception, author Seth Godin sheds new light on the ancient Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus.

The story goes that Daedalus created wings for himself and his son Icarus that were attached with wax.  Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, or the wax would melt.

Icarus became euphoric with the sensation of flying and did indeed fly too close to the sun. Sure enough, the wax melted, he tumbled into the Icarian Sea and died.

But what has been lost over the eons is that Daedalus also warned his son not to fly too low, or the sea water would ruin the lift of the fragile wings.

The admonition of not flying too high and not flying too low aligns with the Buddhist idea of “The Middle Way,” which is the path to liberation.

Although The Middle Way and balance are wise, mindful approaches life, I tend to believe that Icarus did the right thing by flying high.

If you fly too low, you are squandering life’s blessing.

If you fly in the middle, you may have a comfortable life, but you may also miss the adventure.

When you fly closer to the sun, while you risk melting the wax of your wings, you are also breathing rarified air.

You just might get a glimpse and a taste of Heaven.

Isn’t that worth the risk?

 

And shifting from Greek Mythology to Seventies Rock and Roll, this from Manfred Mann’s Blinded By The Light…

“Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun… but Mama, that’s where the fun is.“

 

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Filed Under: Flying, Soul, Spirit Tagged With: Daedalus, Flying, Icarus, Mythology, Seth Godin

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