Red Baron

I have never been a fan of "war stories"and have read little on the topic outside the history books.  I have not been unaware of the human proclivity of man to off his fellow-man.

At any rate, as the anniversary of the death of the noted "Red Baron" approached, I did a bit of reading, just to remind myself that war not only is, but has always been, hell.



Curse you, Red Baron!

Manfred von Richthofen had 80 certified "kills" and probably many more, totaling perhaps more than one hundred.  This is the most kills of any WWI fighter pilot on either side of the conflict.  The next five had, respectively, 75, 72, 61, 60, and 57 confirmed "kills"  with probably a significant number more not confirmed by the records.

What does it tell us?  Six men destroyed more than 400 planes, and each man was regarded as a hero. Killing is heroic.  Some killing is heroic.  Whether one is a hero or a villain when he kills is dependent not upon the taking of a human life, but upon when and where, and how, the killing took place.

Von Richthofen met his demise over the Somme on April 21, 1918.  Whether the shot that took his life was from the ground or from the air has been disputed and debated for the better part of a century, and books have been written about it.

Allied Major Blake organized a funeral  with full military honors for von Richthofen.  One of the wreaths presented by a fighter squadron was inscribed "To Our Gallant and Worthy Foe." 

The baron lived twenty-five years.

Boy Meets Girl #T

 It was more than sixty years ago. Opal had friends. One of her friends had a friend who lived some fifteen hundred or so miles away. Opal was “eligible,” and the friend’s friend, whom we will call “Ed” because that was his name, was also single. Both were in their early twenties but neither had yet met the love of her, or his, life.

I do not know how the arrangements were made, but the mutual friend “hooked them up” by way of the US Mail. Opal and Ed started a correspondence. The letters were frequent and apparently, though I never read any of the letters, the level of sharing of intimacies increased with time. And time passed and a love-of-my-life feeling developed between the pen pals. A date was chosen and Opal began planning a wedding. Keep in mind that Ed and Opal had not yet seen each other, though I do believe that pictures were part of the mail packets.

My father, whose name was not Sam, was known among the younger set as “The Marrying Parson,” for many of the young people who had been his students asked him to officiate at their weddings when the time came. Opal and Ed asked Dad to perform their wedding ceremony. I had a small part, too, for my friend Wes and I were honored to be chosen to act as ushers.

The week of the wedding came. Tuesday afternoon the plane which brought Ed from California to Colorado arrived. That evening Opal and Ed met for the first time. This allowed them Wednesday, Thursday and a portion of Friday in which to date one another and for Ed to meet Opal’s friends and family. The rehearsal and associated festivities were scheduled for Friday evening, and the wedding was to be on Saturday afternoon.

But every story has a hitch, or a twist, or an unexpected turn of events. Or sometimes the story turns out just as one might have anticipated.