Earn this, EARN IT! For most people it’s the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan that have the most impact. Don’t get me wrong, they are still as impactful as the first time I saw them. But for me it’s the last scenes that hit me the hardest because in them I hear the voices of my buddies talking to me.
Ryan gets to live to be an old man. He gets to go home, to get married, to have children and grandchildren, to live a full life. In the winter of his life he returns to Normandy, to what appears to be Colleville Cemetery. By all accounts it would appear he kept the promise. Still, standing over the grave of Capt. Miller, the man who made him make that promise as a young man, he can’t be sure. So he must ask the one person he can trust to tell him whether he has or hasn’t, his wife. He turns to her as says, “Tell me I’m a good man. Tell me I’ve lived a good life.” She figures out in an instant why he’s asking and reassures him.
I’ve been to Colleville. I’ve seen the headstones and placed a flag at the grave of an unknown hero. I’m thankful for their sacrifice. But the voices I hear in that moment of the movie are those of a kid from Long Island and a kid from Massachusetts, Capt Chris Adams and 1Lt. Edward “Ted” Hoyle. Chris was killed at Khobar Towers. Ted died in a mid-air refueling collision of two C-141s over Montana in 1991. They never made it out of their 20s, never got married, never got to be called daddy.
I never served in combat, never got my officer commission. I never even made it to active duty. I enlisted in the AirForce after Chris and before Ted while we were all in AFROTC together. While they went off to active duty I received an early Honorable Discharge from the Reserves.
Ted was lost first. We could only imagine what happened from what we heard. We hoped his death was quick. The same with Chris. We never got the details. We know they were alerted to the attack just prior to the explosion. We hoped neither suffered.
I got to see the world working for an airline. I got to get married, to become a dad. I got to become an old man. They didn’t. I think of them every Memorial Day and in between, especially when I watch that movie. I’ve made the same request of my wife that Ryan makes of his. “Tell me I’m a good man. Tell me I’ve lived a good life.” One day when my time comes, I will ask them and my Maker and hope to hear the words, “Well done my good and faithful one.”
If I’d only known this would be the last picture I’d ever take with my dad. If I’d only known this week in August two years ago would be the last time I would see him alive, what would I do differently? I honestly don’t know. I don’t know because years before I realized he wouldn’t be around forever and I told him I loved him. The last time I saw him I told him he was a good dad. He told me I was a better dad than him. I told him I learned from him, the good and the bad, what to do and what not to do. He laughed knowingly. That was the great relationship we had. He was always there for me, even when I was a jerk.
When I was about 9 or 10 we were working on the car in the driveway one Saturday morning. I loved Saturdays doing work around the house with him while my mom was at work at the hospital. We were probably changing the oil or spark plugs. He’d send me to the basement to go get a tool he forgot. I’d go back and forth until I got it right. I idolized my dad as a boy. On that particular day I remember a conversation we had. Out of the blue he looked at me and said “Mikey (he was the only one to call me that) right now we have a good time together and you like hanging around with me but in a few years you’re gonna think I’m the biggest jerk in the world.” I was in shock and in denial I replied “No way Daddy! That’s never gonna happen.” He knowingly laughed and continued. “Yeah, you will. But it’s okay I’ll be waiting for you on the other side of it.”
He was right. By the time I was 12 we were butting heads all the time. We still got along but we argued quite a bit too. Right up to last time I saw him that conversation came up. If we would argue over something I’d ask him, “Hey dad when’s it gonna be the other side?” That would usually defuse the argument. I got better at defusing arguments then he did as we aged. He’d realize when he’d gone to far and I’d let him save face. Whenever we’d part I’d tell him I loved him and I’d hug him long beyond his comfort level. His generation weren’t huggers so it was just fun to mess with him with a long hug. But I always meant what I said and I knew he loved me too. I also knew one day would be the last time I’d be able to tell him.
My dad was not perfect, none of us are. The only person that was, they nailed to a cross. But my dad was perfect for me. He was my hero. He was a simple guy, a truck driver with a high school diploma who served in the United States Marine Corps. He and my mom busted their backs to put me through college. He told me to work with my head, not my back. I went to college thanks to him and my mom. I got a job and I put myself through grad school twice. Six months after he passed I got promoted to a director position. The first thing I did was put the pencil holder I made for him in kindergarten, in my office. I remember when I made it telling the teacher it was for my dad’s office, even though I knew he didn’t have an office and he drove a truck. Somehow I thought he could put it on the dash or something.
If I’d only known October 9th 2018 would be his last day on Earth, maybe I’d have asked him to tell me those old stories again. “Dad tell me about the time you picked me up as a baby after you just took a shower and put on a clean t-shirt.” He’d make it seem like it just happened yesterday. He’d tell how he lifted up my buck naked little body and I innocently smiled at him. Then suddenly I was laughing and he felt very warm sensation on his chest. He looked down and I had pee’d right in his pocket. Or maybe I’d ask him to tell the one about the day we were out on a Saturday morning when I was almost 2 and some fire trucks raced by with sirens blaring. As they passed all he noticed beyond the surprised look on my face was the overpowering smell of my dirty diaper.
I thought of him today and heard his words coming from my own mouth as I taught my daughter to fish for the first time. “Wait. Wait! Give it some slack. Stop reeling it in. Patience. No the bobber has to go UNDER the water for a fish to be on it.” I’m sure he was laughing watching us. We used his tricks, a little tinfoil, and extra sinker. He was also helping from above. She caught 4 Sunnies in an hour and they all went right back in the pond. Thanks Dad. We had fun. Hope you did too.
If I’d only known…I’d have told him one more time that I loved him, that he was the best dad I could ever ask for, and that I would take care of mom. I’d thank him for keeping his promise and making me go to church all those years. I’d also ask him to put in a good word for me when he met Jesus face to face. But I didn’t know. So instead I cherish the time we did have like in the picture above. I cherish it with no regrets and I talk with him still, especially every Sunday at Mass. Because that’s what he would have wanted…See you later you big Lug. Happy Father’s Day.
I was finally there, Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas. Except it’s not Reese Air Force Base anymore. Now it’s the Reese Technology Center and the airfield, is Reese Airpark, although there is no FBO and there wasn’t an airplane in sight. For thirty years I wondered what it would be like. As time passed I wondered what buildings were still standing. Could I recognize it as an Air Force Base? Would I be able to get near the flight line? I brought a print of T-37 “Tweet” in the Reese markings and even a copy of my orders from 30 March 1989. I don’t know why. Maybe I figured if I did something stupid I could show them as an excuse to get out of trouble.
A coworker that lived in Lubbock offered to drive me to Reese. As we got closer I could tell by the look of the buildings. They were that familiar design I had seen at some other bases that were also now closed like Plattsburgh, Pease, and Williams, AFB, base housing is fairly unmistakable. It had been a long time but some things you remember. We made the left turn into what had been the main gate ahead was the former personnel building where one would report. I remembered the one at Andrews looking similar. Before getting to that though, out of habit I was looking for the guard shack. Out of respect I banged a salute to the spot where ghosts of the past stood sentry as we drove “on base”.
Once on the main road in, I hoped that maybe they left a static display of a “Tweet” or “Talon”, but there were none. They had been removed years before. I scanned for the tower to find the flight line. There it was to the right. We parked and I got out and walked toward the line, a faded sign warning me that it was a “restricted area”. “Hmm, looks old and original” I thought. As I took it all in I wondered, why is it restricted? There was nothing out there. Nothing. Nothing but more imagined apparitions of the past. I stared out at the silent, empty flight line, hoping that something remained. An old hangar queen perhaps, partially preserved in the West Texas heat? Although no true aviator likes to see any airplane meet that fate. There wasn’t even a hint of jet fuel or even avgas in the air.
Once again there was nothing, absolutely nothing. I was too late. It was a bit like a nightmare. The buildings were there but the people were gone. I looked around wondering from which direction I would have walked after pre-flight briefing. What would it have been like? It gnawed at me. For just a moment I was 23 again. This was it. It was no longer just a location on a bucket list. I was actually there after all this time.
THIS was Reese, AFB. This is where according to my orders I was to report for duty on 19 April 1990. I was assigned to the 64th Student Squadron UPT class 91-08, the 8th graduating class of 1991. Would I have passed? Maybe. Not everybody I knew passed. I’m told it was easy to get behind the curve on the T-38, if I even made it that far. The T-37 would be challenging enough as I recalled from my familiarization flight at Columbus, AFB in ’87. If I did pass, what would I have flown? My buddies ended up flying F-117s, F-15s, C-130s, KC-135s and even Air Force 2. Would I have lived to see today? Between Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and everything in between I might not have made it. Not all of them did.
As I stood there I wanted something more than a photograph. I wanted to go back in time for just a moment and see this place like it was, smell the fumes, hear the whine of the “Tweet” one more time. I just wanted it to be 1990 for a just a couple of minutes. Like young Archie Graham in Field of Dreams I longed to step onto that field and see if I could have done it. But I wasn’t invited “into the cornfield” anymore. As the restricted sign stared me in the face, telling me, “your too late old man” I thought about hopping the wall just to touch the ramp. There was nobody around. Who would know? With not a single airplane around it didn’t even look like a flight line. I could have done it no problem, but I had too much respect for the hallowed ground. So instead I “popped to” and banged a salute.
As I turned to walk away, a twinge in my left knee reminded me why the dream never happened. At the time it first happened in 1989, I thought it was a curse. I had a gene that only 8% of the population has, and with just the right GI virus it results in Reiter’s syndrome arthritis. It bothers me now and then but I’m 52 now not 21. Just days before my commissioning into the USAF at the ripe old age of 21 I got arthritis at the end of the Cold War when we were beating our swords into plowshares and downsizing the military. My military career ended before it could airborne. It would always leave me wondering, “what if?” just like Old Doc Graham.
Today, every once in a while I still wonder “what if?” But I no longer see it as a tragedy to have gotten that close to my dream and lost it. Had I not gone down the path I did, I might not have met my wife. We would not have adopted our daughter and I would not have had all the adventures I’ve had over the past 30 years since this all happened. To quote what Doc Graham tells Ray Kinsella, not making it to the big leagues wasn’t a tragedy. To have made it to the big leagues, but not lived the life he lived , “…now that would have been a tragedy.”
Even though I never got to report for duty at Reese, AFB it’s history will unknowingly always hold a place for me. I’m not the only one who came up just shy. According to it’s records, Reese, AFB trained 25,349 pilots in it’s history. I like to think that position 25,350…was mine.
