A picture to make you cry

[Platapus]

I remember when the USAF got rid of the F-4 because its airframe was over 30 years old. Hey, MY airframe was over 30 years old!!

But we can't save every single airframe as a memorial. I hope that we do save some to populate some museums though.

About a million years ago, I was at the Air and Space Museum. One of the Docents was giving a nice talk about one of the transport aircraft. I forget which one. It was one of the smaller not so famous ones. He made the comment about flying on one as a crew member in the Korea timeframe. One of the visitors asked him if he flew on this type of aircraft.

He responded that he flew on THIS aircraft.

I wished I could have corralled him and asked him a ton of questions. I think he would have known the answer.

Imagine being a Docent in a museum with your aircraft in it.

[Growler]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Imagine being a Docent in a museum with your aircraft in it.

Here's one for you, Plat. I was speaking a few years ago with one of the guys in the Torsk Volunteer Association. (Those guys are all a trip - many are sub vets of both Pigboat and Nuc flavors, and are fonts of knowledge.)

Anyway, I was working that day - a Saturday - and speaking with one of the TVA guys who was, at the time, standing with me in the Maneuvering Room on Torsk. As it turned out, the guy I was speaking to worked in Maneuvering. On Torsk, in the mid 60's.

He related to me a story: After he came back and worked on the boat for awhile as a volunteer, the TVA's archivist took him into the boat's archives (where forward battery used to be) and handed him a rolled up tube of papers. They opened the tape on the papers and took a look. In it, they found the boat's Electrician's log from 1965(? I think) with that volunteer's signature on it, from his signing off the duty log that day.

That was a cool story to hear him tell - that here he was, 40-some-odd years after the fact, and here was this piece of paper he signed while on duty back in the day, that he hadn't seen in all those years.

[papa_smurf]

£4.1 billion to build, £200 million to scrap.......a complete farce

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Growler

That was a cool story to hear him tell - that here he was, 40-some-odd years after the fact, and here was this piece of paper he signed while on duty back in the day, that he hadn't seen in all those years.

That's the stuff that makes studying history great!

[Growler]

Originally Posted by Platapus

That's the stuff that makes studying history great!

You said it, brother. It's why I love being involved with these guys - vets of all different stripes in all the services, for many nations - to hear them tell their stories and for the odd coincidences that come with 'em. There are days I wish I were ten of me, just to be able to get ten stories at once.

It's gonna be up to us to pass these guys' stories down, so I wanna get 'em right.