With all the Airline mishaps lately, I was reminded of another one back in the day.
Chicagoan Roger McGill had lucked out. He was being reassigned to the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. Home on leave, we had discussed lining up a date for me there on my discharge from the Army on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day.
I was on a stand-by flight out of Dallas’ Love Field headed to Chicago. Awhile after take-off I glanced out the window only to see the Dallas skyline still below us. That’s when I noticed what appeared to be an engine on fire., a heart-stopping moment. About that time the pilot announced the landing gear wouldn’t retract so they were jettisoning the fuel before they landed back at Love Field. I learned jet fuel ignites as it hits air.
Once on the ground we changed planes. I was bumped again and I waited again and again for an open seat. Flights to Chicago were then cancelled because of an apparent vicious snow storm there. I had somehow lost my small Address Book between Fort Hood and Dallas and had no way to contact Roger. I don’t recall why I continued to try get a flight there. I guess I thought I could find him through their public telephone book. I finally just surrendered and headed back home to Cleveland, arriving too late to celebrate March 17 that year.
A few years ago my late spouse Karen, for no known reason, brought me a book from the Bedford Library. It was the ‘History of the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam.’ I already knew the entire Division had deployed from Hawaii to Vietnam. Reading it I was surprised to read Roger quoted that they knew when the enemy was in the neighborhood as the kids didn’t come around for goodies from the U.S. Soldiers. Afterwards I thought about trying to find Roger.
I searched Facebook and, sure enough, he had a page. We got back in touch with each other and have continued to communicate since. When we initially contacted one another he had no recollection of promising me a date for that distant St. Patrick’s Day. Just as well that I didn’t end up in Chicago that day. One thing I did find out about him that I never knew – we both share County Mayo, Ireland roots. His parents were Irish-born while my roots there are from An Gorta Mor (the Great Hunger) in the Famine year of ‘Black 47”, meaning 1847.
I keep threatening go there for a Chicago St. Patrick’s Day but he says if I do, he won’t promise me a date with a girl in her 20s.
Sullivan writes from Northfield Village. He is a frequent contributor to Nordonia News.News
