T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
Father's Day..2010
My father was a 26-year Air Force veteran, a WWII
vet, and an aviator with a
career he adored. When he died at age 59 my mother
reminded me he was a native
Californian, born and raised with his brother in
Napa. She went on to say one
of his last assignments was HQ PACAF, Hickam. He
adored Hawaii.
She asked if I could release his ashes mid-way
between the two states on one of
my west coast-to-Hawaii trips. As chief controller
of the sextant port I said I
certainly could.
When the momentous day arrived I came to base ops
for departure planning with
my Dad's ashes, placing them on the table in front
of the rest of the crew. Can
you imagine the crew's look when I told them I was
taking my father on board
for final disposition? The loadmaster asked me if I
was expecting to have the
ramp opened at altitude. No imagination!
I couldn't have drawn a more spooked-out flight
engineer to be on crew with
when I told him the ashes were coming up to the
cockpit with us. He had more
experience than I and knew that not everything went
out the sextant port
successfully, especially light things that got
swirled up in the vacuum that
missed going out. I told him I would be careful. The
pallor on his face did not
completely disappear.
The co-pilot started murmuring paraphrased
regulations to the AC about (he then
lowered his voice to a whisper into the AC's ear)
"dumping" things out while in
flight! "I heard that!", I told him. "Look", I
explained, "if a warrior can be
buried at sea from a naval vessel just because the
dump is a few feet above the
water, why should the Navy trump the Air Force? We
can do it better and we can
do it from higher." The AC said, "Bring the ashes,
and we'll talk about it
later."
En route over the water, I told the crew the Air
Force history of my father as
I had planned to do. That was my eulogy and my
excuse in an all-in-one
description. When I was finished, there were a few
positive comments I was
grateful for. I genuinely suspected I had them all
in my camp.
As we approached the mid-way point, I stationed
myself on the stool with ashes
in hand. A minute before release, I recited High
Flight which I knew from
memory since age nine. My father taught it to me
from the poem he put on my
wall.
Finally, in spite of a son's belief that it should
otherwise be, I said there
will be no guns shot in salute (due to present
circumstances).....(my father
would appreciate the humor) ... but there would be
the sound coming from the
open sextant port in anticipation of nature taking
its ashes back. Carefully
Dad left the cockpit.
I later sent the chart to my mother with the
location of the occasion. On a
future visit, she surprised me with how she had cut
the route out from the
chart, put it in a simple frame and stood it up next
to his picture. She had
staggered/overlapped portions of the route above
each other so it would fit
into the frame.
During the rest of the time on that trip out in the
system, I heard from what I
came to consider a great crew with character:
sometimes it was individually --
comments ranging from the uniqueness of it all, to
how pleased they were to
have been a part of this unscheduled ceremony.
Which leads me to this last impression as I reflect
on my career: Some missions
were tougher than others ... real tough. Some
missions had strange twists and
turns that weren't good. There was no end to
surprises. But I can't think of a
crew I was on that disappointed me in character when
it came to doing the right
thing. If there is one phrase above all others that
resonates to the deepest
fibers inside me when facing surprising/tough
circumstances in all facets of
life it is:
"You've got to be flexible to fly the
heavies."
Gary Buckley