Zona

Reverence, originally uploaded by Dan Lilly.

I had the thrill of being able to get onboard one of the very few B17's that still fly. I was like a little boy at first looking at the REAL machine guns and the REAL (but disarmed of course) bombs in the bomb bay. I climbed with glee into the pilot's chair. It was one of those once in a lifetime thrills. THIS picture is the important picture. A friend took it without realizing that I had just spent a few minutes in the realization of what happened in many plane like this. 18-19 year-old boys freezing, praying, fighting for their lives. Enemy bullets tearing through the metal without slowing down and ripping into boys who months earlier had been at dinner tables with family, or on ballfields with childhood friends. Too many young lives taken. A Bishop of my church was a pilot of a plane like this. His was one of 30 bomber crews that went over to Europe. Three came home. There was thrill to this experience for me. But there was also reverence.

// posted by sinner @ 3:09 PM