[vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Happy Independence Day
Good news: The second decade of our three-times-a-year journal begins when Issue 31 goes to the printer on 5 July 2016. It should be mailed from Fort Worth, TX, on 13 July via USPS First Class and in your hands soon thereafter (how soon depending on your whereabouts). We think you will be pleasantly surprised with this issue, the first published in our phased transition from Editor Medley Gatewood to Editor John Schulz. Here’s a sneak peek of the Front Cover and Table of Contents on page 2.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=”” el_file1=””][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”10531,10532″ img_size=”full” onclick=”img_link_large” custom_links_target=”_blank” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” images_space=”gallery_with_space”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]The Front Cover picture is from our Hun Legacy Display Collection. This F-model atop a pedestal at the Municipal Airport in St. Maries, ID, is NOT your typical Hun-on-a-Stick gathering dust in an eternal pose. Oh no. Rather, it is a fully functioning weather vane that constantly moves on sensitive bearings to keep the nose pointed into the changing winds. The full story of this truly unique display Hun in a small Idaho town is on page 18. You’ll find that story simply amazing!
Also amazing are the two featured articles mentioned at the bottom of the Front Cover. Here are their titles and authors names, along with the new Editor’s introductions to these two remarkable articles.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]
The Duane Baker Story: a KIA Hun Driver’s Son Grapples with the Truth by David D. Baker — This unusual and revealing story by Dave Baker was, as he put it, “written mostly for my kids to read and understand who their grandfather was.” The result is a human interest story involving the Hun, its history, and the impact on families when Hun drivers “bought the farm.”
Dave’s father, Duane, died in Vietnam combat in 1967 when Dave was only five. But his years of acceptance of that loss when he was so young turned to surprise and anger—due to a passage in a birthday present he recently received from his mother—a Misty book that told the real story of how his father died. And his hatred of the F-100 only grew as he researched more about the plane, its missions, and the attitudes of those who flew it—and love it to this day.
His follow-up correspondence with Misty Mick Greene, who had investigated the crash, and with book co-author Don Shepperd, to verify details, sparked more anger. But it also resulted in his guest attendance and speech at a subsequent Misty reunion banquet, where what he learned by meeting the Misty pilots helped him heal his new “open wound” and to reappraise his attitudes about the F-100 in a whole new light.
~Ed.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]
Nothing Is As It Appears: “From a Wife’s Perspective” by Jackie Douglass — This is the third of what we hope will be frequent article contributions from the ladies, whose perspectives and adventures are very much part of the story of the F-100 and the men who flew her. Each day, sometimes for years on end, our marriage partners would say after breakfast, “See you at dinnertime,” but did so with fingers crossed that we would, indeed, be alive and well and at the dinner table.
SSSers one and all: please share this and any further “Wife’s Perspective” stories with your bride. And then encourage her to write about her own recollections or vivid incident.
You may learn something when she does–and so will the rest of us!
~Ed[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]
As members of the Super Sabre Society know, these two articles will be riveting, “must reads.” For those Hun drivers viewing this announcement, but who are not yet Society members, we hope the Front Cover and Contents, along with the promised reads of these two article introductions will stimulate you to go to our Join-up Page (click link here) and become one of us!
Just imagine 40 real pages in your own hands full of astounding stories of Hun-related history, heroics and humor. What’s not to like for three issues per year, plus lots of other member benefits, for only $35 per calendar year!
Bye for now.
R. Medley Gatewood
Founding Member and Publisher of The Intake.
We’ll leave you with a copy of the proverbial “Big Picture” of Issue 31. All 40 pages![/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” css_animation=”” el_file1=””][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”10530″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” qode_css_animation=”element_from_bottom” qode_hover_animation=”zoom_in”][/vc_column][/vc_row]