If you are of a certain age, and had a parent or parents who lived through the depression, fought in World War II and then came back to create the 'modern' world of the last half of the past century, then we share a certain sensibility about the current situation in which we find ourselves, as well as a history of believing that what we attempted to accomplish in our 'awakening' of the 60's is again demanding our attention not so much as actors but perhaps now as supporters of what a new generation must do.
This story is not about the 60's, but about the 50's and what shaped this writer's view of his world; the issues of trust in government, military accountability, loss and deprivation, and community all resonate for me still in my political, economic and social views formed in the crucible this story limns.
Some of you may enjoy the following excerpt from my memoir Finding Fred, available at smashwords.com in multiple e-book formats.
An exerpt:
The following morning, Steve and meet Jesse and his wife in the parking lot of a
JB’s on West Northern in Phoenix. He climbs out of his newer Ford pickup, a
handsome, Hispanic man with a soft, engaging voice and manner. Over coffee, he
tells us of what he witnessed that day 60 years ago, how his father drove the
school bus—a late 40’s Chevy pickup with a wooden shell on the back with benches
for kids— and how they heard the explosion and saw the fire in the sky, a huge ball
of flame and pieces of plane, "Like silver splinters", he says, showering the desert
floor about 12 miles away from the place they’d stopped on Hyder Road on their
way to school. He was seven years old at the time.
He then tells us the most amazing thing, “I saw a man coming down with his
parachute on fire.” Steve and I look at each other and back at him. How can you
be sure, I think, but he reiterates that this is what he saw. “It had to be your
father,” he says. It sinks in. It had to be. His was the only body outside of the
wreckage. The two survivors’ parachutes did not burn. Five bodies in the nose,
six in the fuselage, one outside, two survivors. Fourteen accounted for.......so
that’s how his body stayed in the tree, his 'chute traces caught in the branches!
I ask him more about the site, and he tells us that they tried to get out there but
were turned away by guards the first time. The next time, they went out near
noon, the guards had all gone to lunch in town so they got out to the wreckage
that he said was still smoldering several days later. He saw the fuselage and nose
section down in the wash, some of the engines, and piece of the port wing
scattered over the sand. It seems almost impossible that we’re hearing this from
someone who was actually there, 60 years ago, who remembers the event so
vividly and in such detail. He saw my father's fall!