What 4th of July do you remember as the best?

Probably the one in 1982 met a wonderful little person 2 days before, he weighed just about 5 lbs more than the Catfish I caught yesterday. Now he is about 5'11" and 265 not so cute but still good looking and he's given me 2 gorgeous Grandchildren. My Wee Baby Boy.

I departed KFIA early in the morning of 4 Jul 1991 on a C-130 bound for RAF Mildenhall UK. Independence Day took on a new significance for me that day. I had to leave the AOR because my DEROS at RAF Alconbury UK was about 60 days away and I had to get back to pack and out-process. At the time I left KFIA, I had been the Executive Officer of the 354 TFW(P) ever since the 354 TFW rotated back to Myrtle Beach AFB shortly after the Desert Storm cease-fire. The USAF was also rotating colonels into the 354TFW(P) Commander slot every couple of weeks during the redeployment phase of Desert Storm. My job was essentially a walking, talking continuity book. for these commanders. The last 354TFW(P) Commander I worked for was a C-130 pilot. He arranged to be the pilot on a C-130 that was being redeployed back to the world. His route had a stop scheduled at RAF Mildenhall and he offered me a ride 'home.' We flew across Saudi Arabia, crossed the Red Sea, saw Cairo and the pyramids from the air, and landed in Crete to refuel. As soon as we landed, the 2 other passengers and I headed straight for the local NCO Club to get a cold beer to celebrate our "Independence Day" before we had to depart Crete. Imagine our great disappointment when we found the club closed...it wasn't scheduled to open for another hour! So we had to hurry back to the aircraft because we had a specific time slot to transit French airspace that we couldn't miss...we _had_ to leave on-time. We picked up a retiree traveling space-A from Crete and got airborne. We overflew Italy's boot, overflew France, saw the cliffs of Dover from the air and landed in RAF Mildenhall late in the afternoon. My wife and kids were there to greet me. The only detail that I can't seem to recall after all these years was the name of my boss who flew me home...I

It's the ones when I was a kid and fireworks were a thing of magic. My Dad would make a production out of getting just the right rockets. Our town was too small even for a parade so it was back yard time. Well he lit one off and it went up 10 feet, went horizontal, and flew into a pigeon hole in our neighbor's chicken coop. When it went off, it looked just like the cartoons we'd see on our B/W TV which got a whole two channels. Like I said, MAGIC. Feathers coming from everywhere.

A few days later, Dad was talking to the neighbor who was concerned about his chickens not laying eggs. Of course me asking "Dad, did that have anything to do with the rocket?" got me a quick hush up. The neighbor still never realized one went off inside the coop.