Evening star., 1947-08-17

IeI1pGI dUuIG Ill stIlC GcllI Was dU
When I got out of the Army in
l945 I swore never wanted to wear
a uniform again, or fly another
plane, or salute another officer
Now look at me-"
He threw down the comic, book
he had been reading. walked to the
entrance of the tent and stood
looking around the dusty rows OF
olive drab tents that make up the
summer living quarters of The
group. A shirtless man at the en-
trance of a nearby tent sat sweat
ing, polishing his shoes.
Hey, hotshot: what kind of planes
did you say you f1ew?"
"P-38s."
Not the Lockhead Lightning
P-38?"
yep"
"Almost Like Fighter Plane"
"Well, what do you know. They
say that's some fine aircraft. Two
engines and all. Say, where's the
throttle on one of those things?'
"On the left"
"Well, what do you know. almost
like it was a fighter plane" -
We left the tent and started walk
ing toward the operations building
past a volleytbell court where a
group was battfng the ball back
and forth with cold weather energy
Our conversation turned to why
a group of civilians will sweat
through two weeks of Army life in
the summer when they don't have
I to.
Hard to Explain.
TITS a hard thing to explain y
the boy said. II have good job
as an insurance salesman. I'm
married and I like my wife. But
I guess I found I missed fellows
like those over there. got an
itch to fly again and found l
couldn't afford it..
Somebody told me that the Ma
tional Guard had a bunch of oper-
ational planes out here and about
200 men to keep them in the air.
1t only takes a few hours week
and these two weeks in the summer,
and it's a good deal Heck, you
ought to know, you were in a
fighter squadron, too. It's sort OF
like getting back home
This insurance salesman Is typi-
cal of the outfit whose commanding
officer, 1t. Col. L. B.. Mackall. prac-
tices law in Washington most of
the year. Maj, James A. Matthews,
the squadron intelligence officer, is
reference librarian at the Library
of Congress.
Meets War Acquaintance.
On the way to the operations
building We ran into Capt. Benjamin.
Abel who had been in the same
fighter group with me in France
Names of places and people I had
forgotten came back as we talked
of those last few weeks of the war.
Capt. Abel is a general contractor
now, and flies one of the Guard s
new AA26s.
We were trying to arrange to
get a picture of a three ship flight
passing low over the tent area with
a bunch of the men looking up at
them. Base headquarters had given
it's o. k, the flight had been called
on the radio and everything was
all set except for the crowd of men,
who we're unhappy about leaving
their tents and coming to stand
around In the sun. .<..
That's the thing about these
Guard boys" Regular Army officer
observed disapprovingly. They're
so darned independent, it takes an
order from the President to get
them to do anything. They seem
to enjoy themselves, though"
Long Rows of Thunderbolts.
AS we drove down to the flight
line. we passed long rows of PAT
Thunderbolts standing silent and
poised in their disposal areas
Around some Of them crews of men
worked. stripped to the waist, or
lounged on the grass under the
shade of the wings.
1t all looked very familiar, except
for the letters Doing painted on
the side of the silver fuselages. The