About a week ago, I posted some pictures of my mom and her family (you can see that post here). The pictures were found in our basement. At the same time, I found some pictures of my dad. I've posted the one of his B-17 crew before, and I just had to add it again (I love that picture...). My father wrote the names of each airman, men I'm pretty sure are all gone from this life. My dad had to be one of the youngest men in the photo. He enlisted when he was 18 years old in 1944. I never got to ask my dad about his experiences and now I'll probably never get to ask any of the men he flew with about those times, either. My dad is kneeling, farthest to his left, our right. He's "Yours Truly" on the written piece of paper.
My father was a policeman and this picture below shows him posing in front of a shooting target. The gun he's holding is a revolver he won because of that hanging target. He was the first person in the history of Idaho (at the time...) to get a perfect shooting score and the gun was the prize for his marksmanship. He worked as a security guard for the nuclear site in Idaho at the time (it was because of his marksmanship skills the army in their wisdom assigned the tail gun on the B-17 to my dad...). The PHILTRON was their site publication. I have no idea whether or not it is still being published.
One thing I think is lacking today is a healthy respect for guns. In the same PHILTRON article my dad is seen here teaching kids about guns.
I've got so much more "stuff" to sift through in that basement. Better get out the scanner...
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