AHI tribute.
Aces High Tribute:
(just writing thoughts down, hope you get it)
As I walk down the dry aging runway, my feet dragging , swirling up a small dust cloud, I wasn’t sure what brought me back here after all these years. Was I feeling sentimental in my thoughts, of all the people and the times we shared, maybe I was reliving the memories that were forged here, but have rusted over the years? Was I selfishly attempting to traverse time by reaching into the past in a vain attempt to remember a younger, wide eyed version of myself? It really didn’t matter what brought me here, I was here, and the past was slowly making its way to the forefront of my thoughts.
With a slow , somewhat calculated stride, I set off walking down the neglected runways. Grass was growing upwards from the cracks widened by the passing years. Nature it seems, had no time for sentimental journeys, she carried onwards without hesitation. I on the other hand, was becoming overwhelmed by the flushing memories. To a young wide eyed flight officer, how long those runways looked, how large the buildings seemed, and how terrifyingly sleek the planes were. Everything was larger than life, but none more so than the pilots. Oh, the pilots. I still remember it like yesterday, how the aces seemed like gods to the younger ranks. They flew in a different sky than us, they were out of reach, hovering over us , in an untouchable manner. When the aces would reach down from their perch and say, “good fight”, it was the ultimate compliment for a lowly flight officer. This was the instant gratification and acknowledgement of the hours spent flying, trying and dying that propelled us forward and perpetuated our striving to attain a place on the higher ground, closer to the gods.
The cracks on the runway and the rust on the hangars, reminded me that the physical attributes of this hallowed place, didn’t stand the test of time as well as my recollections . Walking past the tower, with it’s broken windows and derelict antennae, I can still here the chatter of dozens of pilots on a huge mission, their voices crackling over the vox. Passing a now empty radar pit, I can still see the multi coloured dots flying together across the screen in a memorial flight to a fallen comrade.
The distant whir of wind slipping through a rusted fence, was easily mistaken for the buzz and laughter emanating from the officers club, by my now overactive imagination. The laughter, oh, the laughter! As a smile emerges from my now windswept face, I chuckle with the thought of the laughter. Laughter that can only come from the dry, terse, sometimes coarse sense of humour that only a member of our brotherhood could understand. We were in a league of our own, and every day spent as part of it, made me feel special.
Heading back to my ride, this final walk past the empty hangars stirred memories of how hard we pilots rode those mechanics! It seems nothing was ever good enough for a flyboy, nor should it have been! The constant yearning for better crafts allowed all that is this place, to have existed. Nearing the end of my visit, I noticed something peculiar. The map room was still in pristine condition. It seemed a fitting monument to all the planning that went on in there, a memorial to all those hard working people who planned our large scenarios and special operations.
The time has come for me to return home, to my new home. I still remember that sunny day in June , 2004, when the last truck convoys rolled, and the final plane was being ferried out, how we all looked into the future with a nervous, uncertain gaze. How we arrived at our new base and all the years of new faces and new memories that we made there,…well that’s a story for another time.
As I flyout, looking back at the sun setting over my old home, I will never forget the names and faces that I met there, most of them I will meet again, but for the ones I never will, may you forever fly in the clear blue skies of our memories.
.. old friend.
