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.
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:
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
Kari Baxter Donovan
Kari Baxter Donovan is the East Coast Political Goddess, an American Patriot who is well versed on the Constitution, and an actual conservative Republican. A supporter of our Military and Veterans, she cherishes family and believes in American Exceptionalism. Kari is the epitome of what it means to be an American, no hyphens involved. She readily admits to being a Steve Bannon Fan Girl. Wait, sorry: devotee. Enchantress?
My father, Col Richard L Alley, passed away eight years ago today, at the age of 88. I clearly recall the one thing he said about his own father, who passed away in the front yard at the age of 80: “I just want to live longer than he did.”
My mother and father met in Sacramento when Dad was training at Mather Air Field. He ended up flying missions for the 8th AF in B-17s, made his missions in one piece and returned to the states, where he became an instructor in B-25s.
Here Dad is being trained to fly.
Dad’s father, Verto, served in World War I.
Verto and Kathleen married soon after. This photo got Verto through WW I.
My father, left, with his brother Jim in Kansas City, Missouri, 1925. All three brothers served in World War II. Dad chose the Air Force, Uncle Jim served in the army and Uncle Bill in the navy.
I miss my father every day and honor his service. Col Richard L. Alley, USAF, 1920 to 2009, WWII and Vietnam.
Above is a photograph of my father’s dad, Verto Alley, who was a bugler and served overseas in Germany and France. Verto was born in 1895, in Minnesota. Though I met him about three times, I remember little if anything about my grandfather because I was young, and because my grandparents on my father’s side lived so far away. I’m pretty sure I factored not at all into his life either.
Grandma was in the back seat of the Olds with me. She leaned over, scrappled my short hair and called me her “towhead.” Then she kissed me on top of my head.
The above photographs are my father in primary flight school, where he learned that the US Army Air Corps considered him to be, after evaluation, bomber material. Dad wanted to be a fighter pilot — who didn’t? — but the USAAC said he was a “team player” kind of guy, not a lone wolf. To multi-engine planes he went and the B-17.
After surviving his missions, Dad came back and the married my mother on April 24th of 1942. In its infinite wisdom the US decided to make Dad a B-25 instructor. Go figure. Above is a photo of my mother and father a short time after their marriage in Reno, Nevada. Below is my father seated in a B-25 Mitchell.
Below, Captain Dad poses with his friend Joel Kuykendahl, while assigned as flight instructors at Roswell Army Air Field (AAF).
I reminisced about Dad recently with my wife and her sister, when she came to visit for the past three weeks as I recuperated from foot surgery.