THE EDIT IN BEYOND FEAR I HAD TO SHARE. (Old Colonel Wyman Leland at the bar speaking of MiG-Alley in the Korean War) SHORT ORDER COOKS The next four beers put Colonel Leland on memory lane. “Men, I can’t say I don’t envy you. I’d love to take a crack at that lean, mean-looking, black machine you call a plane sitting in hanger 12. In World War II, I considered myself a lucky man to have my hands on a P-51. I could hardly wait to fire her up and feel her purr, pretty as cat. She was like a well-built woman; with everything in easy reach.” Mac and Rocket cannot help but smile. The Colonel has a way with words and they love it. “Then came Korea, where I popped my cherry on my first jet fighter, the F-86 Super-Saber. Boys, let me tell you, that was one hell of an airplane. I felt like King Kong, ready to spread the legs of every gook in MiG alley. There were so many MiG-15s tooling around in Korea, you’d have thought the gooks had taken every ‘short order cook’ they could find and dumped them into the cockpit of a MiG. We had a field day. Lead by Triple Aces Joseph McConnell, Jim “Jabby” Jabara and Pete Fernandez with 45.5 kills between them, we sent 720 of those slant-eyed bastards to their ancestors. Then, to add frosting to the cake, we sent a squadron of Russian pilots to join them.” The Colonel’s colorful narration catches the ear of all the pilots standing at the bar and the party is on. Martin DuPont (c) Beyond Fear
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:34:58 +0000
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