My Dad, My Hero

Author: Richard Crandell

I am sitting at my computer and my dad, 91 years and 10 1/2 months old is lying on a hospital bed in the living room of the house we share as I care for him - he is nearing the end. Not communicating much any more, but once he was a giant with me walking beside him, looking up at him in awe.
He was a flight line IP at Webb AFB from about 1960 off and on to 1977, some of the time there in the T-33 before I remember, then the Tweet, then the T-38 as a STURON Instructor in the 38 classroom and IP on the flightline, back again after a tour in Japan to command a T-37 Sq when I was in High School and finally back as a LtCol - to lock the gate as he retired and the BRAC shut the base down.
I read the posts many of you have made with memories of your parents and how they made your time in the White Rocket special. For me I remember being on my dad's shoulders scared to death when the F-106 at the Airshow lights its burner - a hard light - seemed like the world exploded. I remember watching the F-100 Thunderbirds, number 4 with its tail pure black from leads exhaust - thrill me and fill me with joy as they did their routine.
I think back and remember when my dad was aerodrome officer and after the flying was done, late at night, driving down between the taxiway lights and runway lights looking for burned out bulbs - but really just making a forever memory with his son.
After that I knew that I would someday do what he does - conquer the sky. I never doubted that I would be a pilot too.
Later, I remember diverting a Strike Eagle 2 ship into Reese AFB before it closed and him picking me up in his Cherokee 180 to fly me back to Big Spring to spend the night with the family. As we took off from the civilian strip he had flown into the door popped open - I was in the Left Seat. He just held onto it and told me to pull a closed pattern and land - we laughed about it as we took off again - this time successfully.
When I left the next morning he had his little Chevy Love truck parked off the end of the South facing center runway. I stayed about 30' high in full burner and blasted over his head before burying the stick in my lap and disappearing into the solid deck just a couple of hundred feet higher going like a scalded ape...
I remember after my first combat mission in Desert Storm, early in the morning as we took off in the dark and landed at dawn on the first night. I called him up on a Bell Payphone they had set up in Al's Garage (Al Kharj) for us to use. I remember talking to him of the joy - ingressing in the Strike Package of 18 or so jets and bombing a Scud missile - Number 2 of a 3 ship - then rejoining on the deck into a trail of 18 heading back South Then encountering a Mig on the way home and seeing the missile flash from my flight lead as it hit the dirt having too little coolant to keep locked on.
As I wound down a beutiful thing happened. I listened in awe as my dad finally opened up to me about his year in Vietnam - stories I had never heard. Of him as a FAC in an O-1 screaming at a Hun pilot to safe it up and leave as he had dropped on friendlies at night - only to call him up after the mission and find out it was a fellow IP friend of his from Webb. What happened, my dad said. I screwed up. I lost sight of the target, thought I got it back and dropped. Nobody was hurt but some needed to change their trousers. My dad said - just go through dry and let me know. I'll talk you back onto where I want the bombs as that is my job.
He told me of a friend of his dying bombing in a B-57 - level delivery under a low ceiling and took a rocket to the wing root. Back seater got out - front seater did not get a chute before hitting the ground. Another fellow IP from Webb.
He told me of talking to a low ranking Army guy - everyone above him dead asking him if he saw the tree trunk. My dad did. Bomb the other side. I can't - we will kill you! We are dead anyway - hit the other side. The F-4s were pressing so hard they were nearly hitting the tree tops desperately trying to save their lives. And they did get them out.
I talked about the death of my Flight Commander a couple of month's previously in Oman. A strong believer whom my Ops Officer and I had a brief time of sharing readings from the Bible two days before he died. He tried a sliceback in hazy sky just 100' too low - hit the ground with the nose high in full A/B. Not a bad way to go but left a wife with a son and 1 year old daughter - died a few days after her first birthday. That boy grew up to be a T-38 IP here at Columbus AFB, Major Hook. His father was the best pilot I ever flew with - a great man.
We talked one warrior to another for well over an hour. What a joy. He knows what it is like to burst through the clouds to see a carpet of white turned orange as the sun sets - it already having been dark down low but climbing up in burners through the clouds getting a second sunset. He knows what it is like to be number 4 on the wing in the weather with your gyros screaming at you that you are going to die - you are in a 90 degree bank and screaming back at your gyros to shut the hell up as I can see we are wings level when I cross check that big beautiful old style Attitude Indicator. Of your fingers and toes nearly cramping you are working so hard - and then how good it feels as you land and pop the canopy and laugh at death - cheated you yet again...
He well knows all that I have experienced - what most of you have experienced. So even now when he no longer can share tall tales with 10% of truth in them - he is still that giant to me - the man who gave me my love for flying. The man I will always look up to.
For those of you who still have your parents - write down their stories for they too will soon be gone and then we shall follow them.
Death is the enemy but death is defeated. My dad and I will share many stories again in the High Untrespassed sanctity of Space, in the Halls of Burning Blue where never Lark nor even Eagle flew...