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  • Texasgordo

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    Gonzales, Texas
    4d13d0cd7b75e9a7d6e75c938877ecc9.jpg
    Hurley's Gold
     

    benenglish

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    Lots of shot up air crews, that never returned home.
    Before the US entered the war, the casualty rate for English bomber crews was 100%. You flew until you were dead, too injured to continue, or shot down and captured.

    Yet they never had a problem getting volunteers.

    Those boys were brave, patriotic men's men of the sort we don't seem to breed anymore.
     

    striker55

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    Before the US entered the war, the casualty rate for English bomber crews was 100%. You flew until you were dead, too injured to continue, or shot down and captured.

    Yet they never had a problem getting volunteers.

    Those boys were brave, patriotic men's men of the sort we don't seem to breed anymore.
    Father-in-law was a nose gunner in a B-24. A B-24 was at Ellington one year, I took him to see it, they treated him like royalty.
     

    baboon

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    Out here by the lake!
    Before the US entered the war, the casualty rate for English bomber crews was 100%. You flew until you were dead, too injured to continue, or shot down and captured.

    Yet they never had a problem getting volunteers.

    Those boys were brave, patriotic men's men of the sort we don't seem to breed anymore.
    Ben them boys were mostly boys. I have pictures of my dad at barracks in New Mexico & Nevada where he looks like every bit of 17, and very much a kid. Then pictures of him partying it up much old & wiser but still very young.
     

    benenglish

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    Ben them boys were mostly boys. I have pictures of my dad...
    I surely understand. My dad was 17 or 18 when a "full bird colonel" (which is a term my dad used, even if I don't really know what it means) thanked him for volunteering for a mission. Actually, the words the officer used were "Thank you for giving your life for your country." I think my dad was the only one to survive that mission.

    Yes, I referred to them as boys. But I also said they were men's men of the sort we don't seem to breed anymore.

    I shudder to think of the situation we'd be in today if we had to rely on 17-year-old boys to be men, to make the choices and do the deeds our fathers did.
     

    benenglish

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    Father-in-law flew in the Little King.
    I had an uncle who was a glider pilot for D-day. I remember when he and my father were sitting in the front yard and the subject of WWII came up. I asked him what he had done in the war. I was no more than 12 at the time but I had studied WWII a great deal, like many boys of my time. So my uncle tells me what he did and I just blurted out "Wow! I didn't know you were that crazy!"

    He just chuckled and said "We just did what we had to do."

    Yeah. He flew in the vanguard of an invasion against a terrible foe with nothing to protect him but darkness and balsa wood.

    Indeed, "Uncommon valor was a common virtue."

    I won't live to see their like again.
     

    BRD@66

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    Since there is a "lieutenant colonel" (rank insignia a silver maple leaf) and a "colonel" (rank insignia a silver eagle), it is obvious why he would be called a "full bird colonel". Both ranks were always informally addressed as "colonel", so "full bird" made the distinction.
    & BTW, LTC aka light colonel
     
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