Father & Son

Author: Robert Morus

I sat alongside my father in a private room at San Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. At age 48, he was soon to pass away from kidney cancer. We communicated much more openly over the last few years as I began to fly in college. But a few things remained undiscussed mysteries, and I used this moment to tell him I was about to get a slot for Air Force pilot training.

When Dad was barely 21, the New York Air National Guard sponsored him for the Aviation Cadet program. He had earned a private pilot license with money he earned as a golf caddy for wealthy businessmen and had joined the Air Guard a couple of years earlier, hoping to earn a pilot position. The Cadet program puts you through primary and advanced training while in a boot camp environment. You earned your wings and commission in one ceremony. It was often a rough experience. Dad flew the T-6 and T-33, then graduated as a 2LT and F-86 pilot from the Jet Fighter class 54M. I could tell that he held mixed feelings about my announced direction.

“Dad, I’m being sponsored by the Air Force Reserves, and I’ll be commissioned before going to UPT.” “Well, in THAT case,” he brightened up,” don’t choose KC-135s or Helicopter gun ships.” Case closed, I had his blessing. As a Pan Am 707 Captain, he witnessed too many marginal water injection takeoffs by the KC-135 at war weights. Earlier, on furlough from Pan Am, he joined the Army National Guard and transitioned to Hueys in the First Air Cavalry.

He didn’t live long enough to see me go to OTS or UPT in Laughlin AFB’s Class 82-01, but my mother pinned his wings on my chest that proud day in Del Rio.