Category Archives: Greatest Generation

My father: 10 years on

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Col. Richard Lee Alley, USAF, 4-13-1920 to 2-11-2009

My father, United States Air Force full bird Colonel Richard Lee Alley, passed away ten years ago, on this day. February 11th, 2009.

He was 88 years old. He missed his 89th birthday by less than two months.

This year, he would be 99 on April 13th.

I cannot, still, tell you how terribly I miss him.

He was a part of The Greatest Generation.

The generation that secured promise and freedom and liberty for not only the United States, but for the entire world at large.

At the end of his life, he proffered large decisions. I had to make many of those large decisions. One of the worst for me was deciding to take him out of his very own house. The house where me and my two other brothers were raised. The house where he clinged.

First, I had to physically take him out of his house. Where he and my family had lived — for over sixty years. He said: “goodbye house.”

I wrote about looking at my father’s face in repose.

Ten years. I can remember it like yesterday. It seems like it was yesterday. And there isn’t a day that I don’t think about Dad.

So many questions. So many questions I would loved to have asked him. But I was wrapped up in my life and didn’t realize until a year or so later how he may have played a very serious role in any number of USAF adventures on many levels.

That first night of his passing, the 11th, I had a dream. I awakened with it in my head. Carole King was singing “So Far Away.” I remember that most distinctly.

Dad passed away at 3:30 am on Wednesday, February 11th. The night before, I had been able to summon both my brothers and my wife to his bedside. Friends visited. I thought he would make it through that night. I was sure of it. My wife counseled me: “kiss him, kiss him goodnight.” But I didn’t do it. I tried to make light of his condition, that he’d be around the next day. I’ll horribly regret not kissing my father goodbye to my very own dying day, come what may.

I pondered what had happened, here. I reflected, once again, here. I thanked you, my readers, for supporting me here. My father’s funeral was documented here. There were more goodbyes for me, just selling my father’s car.

He was a member of The Greatest Generation. Those who made so many major sacrifices for our great nation, kept us safe in our beds, and kept the country strong and free. Their incredible sacrifices. Though they didn’t necessarily want to do so. He fought in B-17s. He trained in B-25s. It was almost the perfect triumvirate: his brother Jim signed up for the Army; his youngest brother Bill enlisted in the Navy (and had the USS Yorktownsink underneath him). My father went for the Army Air Force.

If you want to digest the quintessential document of sacrifice, read “With The Old Breed” by Eugene B. Sledge. Astounding. Simply astounding. Or perhaps the superior(but lesser read) Bert Stiles book: “Serenade To The Big Bird.”

They didn’t want to be there, they feared, they wanted to run away. And yet they persevered.

God bless you, Dad.

I think about you every day.

I can only hope, as I wrote:

I’ll bet my Dad’s flying high above the earth right now, in an open cockpit Consolidated Vultee BT-13, canopy slided back, where the skies are blue, the weather fair, and he’s young, strong and free. So free.

God bless you, Dad. Hold Mom’s hand. Step into your past, may it be untroubled and calm and fair. May your love be unfettered and limitless and beautiful. Whatever your ideal reality would be, let it be.

And I write this post through a film of tears. My throat constricts. I still miss you terribly.

What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just let this go?

BZ

 

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Louis Zamperini, American hero, soldier, patriot, passes at age 97

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unbroken_angelina_jolie_louis_zamperini_a_lLouis Zamperini and Angelina Jolie.

If you have not yet, you need to purchase a copy of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, in order to understand the massive courage, strength, fortitude, courage and patriotism of Louis Zamperini, who passed away early Thursday at the age of 97, after a 40 day battle with pneumonia.

He was absolutely everything The Greatest Generation embodied, and then some.

Louis Zamperini Wins the Mile in Seattle, 1939Louis Zamperini, born in New York in 1917, was a young roustabout who developed a penchant for running after his family moved to Torrance in Southern California in 1919.  Because the family spoke no English, Louis’s father taught him to box for self-defense.  After getting into various forms of trouble behind that, Louis took up track.

In 1934, Zamperini set a world interscholastic record for the mile, clocking in at 04:21.2 at the preliminary meet to the state championships.  He won a scholarship to USC for his track skills.  Whilst at USC, Zamperini qualified for a spot on the 1936 US Olympics team, held in Berlin, Germany.

Zamperini met Adolf Hitler. Hitler shook his hand, and said simply “Ah, you’re the boy with the fast finish.”  Zamperini then stole a flag from Hitler.  Guts.

From Wikipedia:

Two years later, in 1938, Zamperini set a national collegiate mile record of 4:08 despite severe cuts to his shins from competitors attempting to spike him during the race.  This record held for fifteen years, earning him the nickname “Torrance Tornado”.

Louis Zamparini, WWIILouis enlisted in the USAAF and was, as a bombardier, at his base assigned a final plane to fly in order to search for a lost crew.  This aircraft was a piece of crap and went down into the ocean, killing 8 of the 11 men aboard.

His commander knew the plane was a piece of crap.

It still sealed his and the fate of others: he would face his torturer directly and then triumph over incredibly-stacked odds.

And this only after 47 days adrift upon the open ocean and then captured by the Japanese Navy on the 48th.

From 1943 until August of 1945, Zamperini was kept as a POW.  He was tortured and specifically targeted for torment by prison guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed “The Bird”), who was later included in General Douglas MacArthur’s list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan.

Zamperini was first declared “missing at sea,” and then “missing in action.”  He was held at the same camp that then-Major Greg “Pappy” Boyington, in his book, Baa Baa Black Sheep, was held.

Conflicted and suffering from what we now know as PTSD, Zamperini became a born-again Christian in 1949.  He made it a point to forgive The Bird.

He said, after that, he finally began to sleep at night.

And now, perhaps you’re just finally beginning to understand who Louis Zamperini truly was.

For his 81st birthday in January 1998, Zamperini ran a leg in the Olympic Torch relay for the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. While there, he attempted to meet with his chief and most brutal tormentor during the war, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who had evaded prosecution as a war criminal, but the latter refused to see him. In March 2005 he returned to Germany to visit the Berlin Olympic Stadium for the first time since he competed there.[23]

There was no other.  Louis Zamperini was the best and the greatest of the great.  He became an inspirational speaker who allowed others to see their plight and then exceed expectations.

His was a cause that Angelina Jolie took up, to the point that he became inspiration for a movie to be released later this year — which he will not see terrestrially.

The movie “Unbroken” will be released at Christmas this year.

I have touched only but upon a few highlights of this wonderful man’s life.

He said:

“When you have a good attitude your immune system is fortified.”
– Louis Zamperini

Yes it is — yes it is, Louis Silvie Zamperini.  You lived life to the fullest, met every challenge head on, survived, thrived and looked death and adventure in the eye.  You were the true embodiment of every good thing about The Greatest Generation.

He was scheduled to be the Grand Marshal of the 2015 Rose Parade in Pasadena, California.

“After a 40-day long battle for his life, he peacefully passed away in the presence of his entire family, leaving behind a legacy that has touched so many lives,” the family statement said. “His indomitable courage and fighting spirit were never more apparent than in these last days.”

How perfect that I write of you for my 4th of July post.

BZ

 

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