What an amazing experience I had this last weekend. What started out as a typical ID shoot turned into a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
We were sent to shoot a story / gather some IDs for the station centered around these WWII Bomber planes. Three years ago, my boss tried to get an ID shoot together to promote Ken Burns’ The War, and three years later, she finally got the opportunity. So off we went to Kankakee Airport to greet and interview the planes and their pilots, along with a vet named Orville who had stories galore.
Orville had stories about how he was a tailgunner on the B-17…and how, during a mid-flight fight, a German bomber came up close to them. He could see the German pilot, and Orville wanted to shoot, but his gun jammed. He thought he was a goner. But the German bomber just looked at him, smiled, and flew away. Stories like these make me grateful that I wasn’t born during the war, and grateful that these guys fought for the very freedom I adore. Very eye opening.
Another story was kinda bittersweet…
He stops and sets down his briefcase, and stares beyond the horizon. He says, “You know what you can never forget? Your last flight. I flew 34 missions, but it’s that last one I remember most. Because I got to come home. On the 35th mission, these guys all wrote home to say they were coming home, and their plane, supposed to carry them to the base camp that would eventually take them home…this plane, full of hopeful guys who thought they flew their last mission, crash into a mountain top.” He pauses, wipes away tears, and quietly says, as his voice cracks, “You’re so grateful, but you feel so guilty because you wonder why. Why me? But then you realize what a lucky son of a gun you are, and just cherish that.” He smiles, tips his hat to me, and limps on his way. The sun beats down, and suddenly, there is a tear in my eye. I blame the sun, but we all know that I can never understand their sacrifice, but I can help remember them.
And that’s exactly what I intend to do. The biggest fear of these veterans is that future generations will just forget about them. That they will be just another caption on a picture in a history book. In a history book that some high schooler will draw on absentmindedly as he waits impatiently for another history class to end. We HAVE to remember them. And having met some of them, , you realize, these guys, they fought for my freedom, and they NEED to be remembered. They cannot be forgotten. They should not be forgotten. Having met Jim Tayon, one of the founders of Franklin County Honor Flight, who just thought one day, these guys should be remembered, swells my heart, so things like The Collings Foundation and The Honor Flight need to stay around. These guys will be gone before their time, and their legacies should live on. Especially if you experienced what I did during a flight on a WWII Bomber.
And I can never, ever, give enough gratitude to the guys that flew on this thing to fight. I made it out alive after a 30 minute plane ride in which I thought I was going to hurl…I cannot imagine what they went through, but I am eternally grateful.
For more pictures, visit Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.720844519675.2399709.3426416&type=3&l=d089f7f8fa
For the story on Chicago Tonight/Jay’s Chicago, visit:
http://blogs.wttw.com/jayschicago/2011/02/16/world-war-ii-bombers/
