April 19, 2010, 2010
The Truth Is…
It was February of 1970 and my great uncle, Lieutenant Colonel Bill was stationed in Las Vegas, Nevada along with his son, Michael. Michael was in his early twenties and had just been flying planes for a few short years. My uncle Bill had joined the Airforce when he graduated college in the mid fifties and fought in Vietnam War. He had flown fighter planes all throughout his time over there so he had experience under his belt. He came home to see Michael, who was excited to show off his flying skills. Early one morning in February, Michael and Bill went up in the air north of Las Vegas with nothing but a light jacket, t-shirts, shorts and loafers. It was just another normal day as they flew over some mountains but Michael flew up too high and was in extremely thin air. They ended up getting caught in a down draft and although Michael had flown, he knew his dad had more experience and asked him to take over. Bill told him that he needed to figure it out on his own and that his experience did not matter because of it being a weather related issue. Michael had been in a few crashed before and knew what was about to happen. He turned to Bill and said “looks like we are going in dad.” Michael’s plane clipped a tree on the way down, which tore the wing off and flipped the plane onto its back where they then crashed. Michael was killed upon impact and Uncle Bill only had a few scrapes. The temperature was well below freezing where they crashed. Uncle Bill pulled Michael from the plane and covered him with the jacket from his back. He left the body of his son by the plane and made his way down to a town at the bottom. As people began to realize the plane was overdue, they sent out a search party. Two days after the crash, the search team finally found my Uncle as he had been making his way down the mountain. They rushed him to the military hospital where he was stationed as they went and collected the plane and Michael. My uncle...