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To the Editor

This quiet, rainy Memorial Day morning my thoughts wander from the present to the past and back again. Something I have instinctively known has become clear. I have always lived with heroes.

My father, John W. Chiles, was First Batallion commander at The Virginia Military Institute. He met his Brother Rat’s sister, Elizabeth “Libby” Garland Talman there. After graduating in 1939 he joined the Army Air Corps and went to flight school at Clark Field in California. Later, Libby traveled by train from Richmond to California. They were married in front of two couples who were the official witnesses to the ceremony. One of my mother’s deepest regrets was her mother couldn’t be at the wedding of her only daughter.

Soon Mom was expecting my older sister – who no longer wants to be called that. Dad was to be assigned to the Philippines before their baby could be born. Mom did not want to be alone in California with a new baby. She traveled back to her parents’ home in Richmond while her doctor would still allow her to travel. A little later Dad was assigned to Hickam Air Base in the Philippines.

A very short time after Dad arrived, on December 7, 1945, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Hickam. Dad said, “An old Master Sergeant dove into one of the bomb craters in the runway and shot up at the Japanese with his forty-five. They took us so by surprise that was the only armed resistance at Hickam.”

Dad piloted B-17 bombers in combat virtually his entire sixteen-month rotation at Hickam. His crew’s schedule was eat, sleep six hours, make another bombing run, return, and do it again.

Dad was in his nineties when he told me about one specific bombing run. His co-pilot was cut in half by machine gun fire. Five of his B-17’s ten-man crew were killed. Four men were wounded. He said, “Son, if there’s one man you don’t want wounded on an airplane, it’s the pilot.” Dad managed to feather the landing of his shot-up B-17. Dad explained the procedure after landing was to immediately help the wounded, remove the dead, the repair the plane as quickly as possible so it could go back into combat. Dad said, “I helped my wounded men and helped remove my men who didn’t make it. They told me my B-17 would never withstand the strain of taking off again. I watched as they hauled my B-17 to the scrap yard and started cutting it up for parts while the engines were still warm. Such brave men. Such a wonderful aircraft.” For the first time in my life, I saw tears in my father’s eyes.

A few minutes later he softly said, “After that men said, ‘If you fly with Chiles, he’ll bring you back. You might be dead, but he’ll bring you home.’”

When Dad was scheduled to return from the Philippines, Mom got ready to travel back to California with eleven-month-old baby Beth. Dad’s General Burgess called Mom and told her Dad’s assignment had changed. Dad and Jim Ferry, a combat pilot friend of Dad’s, were being assigned to The Pentagon. Dad said, “We were there to advise the Colonels and Generals about the capabilities and limitations of Air Power. They were from World War I and knew a mule front and back. They admitted they didn’t know about airplanes. Thank God they listened!”

My father was awarded a lot of metals. I noticed he didn’t have a Purple Heart. He said, “I never got one of those. I never wanted on either!” Then he laughed. I was more impressed with Dad’s metals than he was. His comment was, “Son, if you’re in combat long enough, and you live, you’re going to pick up some metals.”

At the end of World War II, Dad left the military. In 1957 he rejoined the now United States Air Force as a civilian. We spent a year in Germany. Then he worked at The Pentagon until he retired. One of the big projects he worked on was making airport signals and lighting uniform. Before that, pilots had to learn a vast hodge podge of signals and lighting at individual airports.

My father and mother held hands and still deeply loved each other at their seventieth anniversary. Dad died when he was ninety-five. Mom died just three weeks shy of one-hundred-and-four.

My wife’s father, Joseph R. “Joe” Lamar was first generation Italian. Yes, he came over on the boat. His extended family settled in a tall apartment building in the Bronx. During The Great Depression, Joe joined the CCCs (Civilian Conservation Corps). He helped build trails through our National Forests. Then Joe enlisted in the United States Army. Joe fought in World War II and Korea. Capping a thirty-three-year career Joe retired as a full-bird colonel.

When he was seventy, Joe suffered a stroke caused by a ruptured blood vessel which was feeding a benign brain tumor. That’s when we discovered Joe was one of the soldiers who stood with his head and shoulder above a trench while the Army set off an atomic bomb in front of them. Our country needed to learn the long-term effects of radiation and Joe got a three-day pass to Las Vegas. The surgeon and other experts were certain Joe’s exposure to radiation caused the tumor, which had grown to the size of the surgeon’s fist.

Fortunately, the tumor had grown so slowly that Joe’s other brain cells had taken up the function of each crowded out dying brain cell. And that’s when the Army granted Joe an additional ninety dollars a month retirement. Their record of him being at the A-bomb had been lost. Joe had a full life until age ninety-four when he broke his hip. Fairfax Hospital kept facing emergencies that took priority over a ninety-four-year-old man. Joe’s surgery was put off for four days. The surgery was a success, but Joe died. When Judy’s mom, Ruth, died some years later, she was buried with Joe at Arlington National Cemetery.

I always tried to make my parents proud, and I still try to live up to their example. Judy was and is the same way regarding her parents.

After morning classes during summer school at VMI in 1965, I worked as a laborer on the new Corps Activities Building. My Brother Rat William Brent Bell worked with me. We could read the plans so, in addition to our standard duties, we erected and tied the reinforcing steel. We often worked past quitting time (without pay) to make sure everything was ready for the crew in the morning while we were in classes. We were a team and became good friends. When summer school ended, Mr. French, our boss, shook our hands and said, “If I could keep you two men with me, I would bring this project in ahead of schedule and under budget.”

The Army sent Brent to VMI. Brent loved the Army so much that he left VMI early and returned to the Army. Brent became a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, then the 101st Airborne and later a member of the 75th Infantry – Rangers 1st Cavalry Division. Brent was assigned to Vietnam. Brent volunteered for and engaged in perilous missions behind enemy lines to insert or extract combat, intelligence personnel troops and performed reconnaissance-intelligence gathering missions on his own.

On a mission inserting platoons northeast of Dau Tieng-Bin Long Province, the Rangers were dropped off. As their helicopter tried to gain altitude, it was raked by .51 caliber anti-aircraft machine gun fire from the jungle. Everyone on board was hit. Their helicopter crashed in the jungle and there were no survivors.

Killed that day were: Pilot Bard Elton Davenport, Co-Pilot William Don Potter, Aircrewman Sgt. Allan Harper, Aircrewman Specialist John Bussey Waller and 1st Lieutenant William Brent Bell, Ranger 75th Infantry, 1st Cavalry Division.

You can find my friend’s name, William Brent Bell, on Panel 28, Line 7 on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.

How dare any of us be sniveling and weak after the sacrifices and heroism of so many generations, including our generation and The Greatest Generation? How can we say it is too much trouble to vote when our right to vote was bought with the blood of patriots? Why would we cower from verbal threats or bad tweets? Why should elected officials change the core of their being to supposedly strengthen their chances against a challenger in a primary of an election? Why can’t we continue to help stamp out disease and hunger in this world? How can we not stand up against the persecution or slaughter of innocent people? Why do some top officials so greedily rush to have “Bought & Paid For” stamped on their foreheads?

We’ve always walked with heroes.

We are The United States of America.

John Chiles Jr.

Southern Shores

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