Picked up his memoirs at the Camarillo, CA airshow the other weekend. Seemed pretty friendly. Had him sign the book to my boy. He gave me his business card, so I just called him a few minutes ago to order another book for my dad. Yep, totally chatted with me. Didn’t mind me asking questions–happy to talk. Said he’d put the book in the mail. He’s not even waiting for me to send the check first. (BTW, his name is Bob Goebel. He downed 11 enemy fighters in his P51D.) He’s a freaking ACE, from WORLD FREAKING WAR II. And he’s just chatting with me. I feel so honored. I don’t get to talk to many WWII vets (you know-- most of them being dead and all…or deaf…or both).
Mundane and pointless for you guys, maybe, but I just had to share.
(That made the phone call a little awkward. Instead of the, “Hi, could I talk to Bob Go…Ger…G-elbow-er-el?” I went with the, “Hi, I’m calling for a WWII fighter ace–is this the right number to talk to one of those?”)
I used to talk to this guy all the time. He wasn’t an ace, but he had a pretty damned hard job in WWII. That’s my grandfather, the picture was taken on 8/6/45.
We had an interesting guest come speak to us at work a couple months ago.
I forget his name, but he was a retired USAF General. He was a B-24 bomber pilot in the ETO, and later was a test pilot on the YB-49 “Flying Wing” program. Very interesting fellow, had a hand in a ton of history.
He was hired by some Florida company to go around and give “pep” talks on the new workplace safety initiative, poor fella. Heh.
My FiL is a WW2 vet; Joined the Marines the day after the Pearl Harbor attack. Fought in the South Pacific and has some tales but its hard to get him to talk about them. He was wounded badly enough to be discharged with a 50% disability. The guy is 93 now and I believe he just might outlive me. One of the relatively few people who has my absolute non-conditional respect.
