I got Burma, Her Story published the other day. The short
story, at least. My next project is to turn it into a screenplay.
This is a story that I grew up hearing. I can’t remember
a time of my life where I didn’t know bits and pieces of the life of this dog. I
was happy to find third person contemporary sources to verify this amazing
journey.
My grandfather was a pilot. When he was a child, he told
the story of looking up to the sky on his Kansas farm and seeing a plane fly
overhead and deciding to be a pilot. Mind you, this was in the 1920s. When he
was old enough to join the Air Corps (predecessor to the USAF), he was first
rejected because he was a several pounds underweight. So, he went home and ate
and ate bananas for two weeks. Then he went back to the recruitment center and
refused to go relieve himself until after he had been accepted into the
military. Apparently, he was very grumpy that day.
He was already in the military, training in Arizona, when
Pearl Harbor happened. He also listed many of his other military experiences in
this treasure trove of declassified journals that we found after he had passed.
He was also in the top 14 finalists to be among the first astronauts ever.
He was always a pilot, until an ultralight crash when he
was 86 years old. The power cut out just after takeoff and he had to glide to
an emergency landing in a field near Pittsburg (I think on the Missouri side).
However, one of the wheels caught in a power line and cartwheeled him into the
ground. I saw the pieces and scraps of the wreckage and couldn’t believe that
anyone could survive that.
He lived until he was 92. His wits and eyesight never
failed.
When I was younger, he would fly up to town to pick me up
and fly me back down to the farm. He didn’t believe in this newfangled GPS. He
gave me a map and told me to keep an eye on the highway and the rivers. Also, I
learned that “taking the wheel” in a plane is a whole different ballgame then
in a car.
By publishing this story, I want to share with the world
what kind of man my grandfather was.