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Opinion
Christopher Columbus and a Latin American pilot
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Big celebration yesterday right? The day honoring Christopher Columbus's discovery of America is little noticed! Well yes, a few government offices and the banks were closed but no dancing in the streets kind of celebration. Somehow the Native Americans don't celebrate Columbus Day either possibly because they can envision what a different life they would lead today sans the influence of the Europeans that flooded to the new land that Columbus had stumbled upon in his quest to sail to India. Well yes, possibly that is where the name "Indian" came from.
Back in days of yore, circa 1971, Uncle Sam thought yours truly needed to be reassigned back to the Vietnam War. Never mind that I had already spent 420 some days flying air refueling tankers over that area. It was time to go back and spend a year more flying C-47's the military version of the venerable DC-3 airliner. The overseas base where I was headed was in G.I. parlance NKP for Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Navy Base, Thailand. It was located on the east bank of the Mekong River right across from Cambodia. I didn't make it to that assignment as the Vietnam War drew to a close only weeks before I was to depart the ZI. NKP was an interesting base whereas in the jet age of warfare, Vietnam, the going to war flight line there had only World War II vintage propeller driven aircraft, the A-1 called the Spad, C-47 Gooney Birds and the C-119K gunships. Spooky, and earlier the B-26K light bombers, Nimrod, before they were taken off flying status due to wings falling off. Rescue helicopters staged from there. The CIA also reportedly had a contingent of propeller driven aircraft Cessna 185's, Cessna Skymasters, Pilatus PC-6's and more but we can't talk about them -- invisible.
The genesis of this tale is that to check-out in the beloved old Gooney Bird, aka C-47, DC-3, that I was to fly for a year I was sent to Hurlburt Field, Florida. Turned out I became a proud member of the last Air Force class to fly the C-47 when probably the first class of pilots to train in it started sometime in 1942.
My tablemate, two students one flight instructor, for the C-47 course was a 2nd Lieutenant pilot from the Dominican Republic Air Force. Miguel, just call me "Mike," who had been flying the T-28 in his island country. He hailed from the capitol city of Santa Domingo and the C-47 and P-51 were the frontline aircraft of his country in that era.
It didn't take much time before Mike proudly pointed out that his country is where Christopher Columbus first landed when he discovered the New World. Mike was proud of that milestone in history although he neglected to mention that Christopher Columbus actually first set foot on New World soil on what is now Haiti. Actually, the first permanent European settlement in the Americas was made in Mike's home country and it is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the New World. The Dominican Republic now occupies five-eighths of the island of Hispaniola while the other three-eighths fenced off, is the terribly poor nation of Haiti. Mike looked on Haiti as a blight in this world compared to his pretty and perfect homeland.
Mike was an education for me in a number of ways. For one he was frustrated because on U.S. soil he could not wear his firearm, "peestol," as part of his uniform. And he wore his uniform everywhere on duty and off. He told me that he contributed a lack of luck with women because he could not rub his "peestol" against her when dancing.
In my opinion, his lack of hygiene and underarm deodorant may have also been a factor. It was Mike who introduced me to a Panamanian, whom Mike really looked up to, later to be dictator named Manual Noriega.
Columbus Day, bless you friend Mike. I hope all your flights landed safely and that your whole life went well. I never kept track of my friend of Caribbean flavor although many time during that three months of training he implored Grannie Annie and me to come to his home to visit. Now that would have been an interesting vacation.
Grannie Annie and I watched the debate last night along with millions of other people. Interesting how many people professed being horrified at Trump's 10-year-ago foray into "locker room" talk.
Those upset at Trump's lurid words must not have spent much/any time in the military or any other workplace filled with virile young men. Most times such statements are braggadocio strictly wistful thinking and then Christian upbringing kicks in and never come close to happening anyway. Just a bunch of wind.
Yet I wonder who released the video and sound track of Trump's smut mouth recorded some eleven years ago? Surely it couldn't have been Hillary's campaign as there is plenty of documentation of how terribly foul-mouthed that lady is when out of the lights and away from the microphone. One pot calling the other black.
That is the way I saw it.