I love stories like this one

[billhammond]

www.startribune.com/at-age-95-heroic-wwii-pilot-takes-to-the-minnesota-sky-in-restored-b-25-bomber/482395531/#1

Don't miss the photos. (Terry, any chance you could make it to the June 16th airshow?)

[billhammond]

Bump for Terry.

[dradtke]

It’s among more than a dozen meticulously restored military planes at the Fagen Fighters WWII Museum, an impressive, sprawling installation created in this Minnesota River Valley town by Ron and Diane Fagen in honor of Ron’s late father, Ray, a GI who stormed the Normandy beaches on D-Day.

While the planes are a big draw, the museum also includes dozens of fascinating exhibits ranging from homefront war rationing to Lakota code talkers. A major new installation gives a somber, brutal account of the deaths of millions of Jews and others who perished in the Holocaust. The museum also includes thousands of artifacts, from Tommy guns and flamethrowers to Gen. Omar Bradley’s personal jeep.

Fagen Fighters is one of our clients.

[TKennedy]

Great story. When the Collings Foundation B-17 and B-24 were in Alexandria Fagen flew up a P-51D and some other guy had a B as well.

I went up in the B-17 and was standing in the top turret over lake Miltona when all of a sudden the P-51D pulled up on our wing. It was too cool.

I play golf with a retired Air Force fighter pilot and we plan to go down to Fagen’s museum this year.

I have nothing on June 16 Bill.

[Deleted]

He feels like a kid again. I have a visceral understanding of what he is talking about. One develops a strange attachment to places and things, especially when those places and things are associated with service in war. Every time I see a tank, for instance, my mind wanders back to when I was a young officer. Mind you, I had moved to a different job in our organization by the time Desert Storm rolled around, so watched then entire thing from about 3 to 4 kilometers back. Nevertheless, the mental whiplash is palpable. There isn't anything else that smells and sounds like an M1 tank. I imagine Hod Hutson feels the same about a B-25.

[AlanC]

Very cool story.
At my one and only bucket list skydive there was a 90 year old former fighter pilot who sneaked out of the house to go skydive. He lived with his son and they wouldn't take him or allow him so he slipped his leash and went skydiving anyway. He was still lean and mean. I bet he was something in his prime.

[Village Idiot]

That was a great story.

[coachdoc]

Poignant for me. Dad navigated one. First over Normandy Beach. Multiple missions during the Dresden firebombing. He carried a lot of distress over Dresden. The novel I just finished amply illustrated the horror on the ground he saw from the air. He thanked the heavens for his distance from that horror.