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Emporia, KS, the "Birthplace of Veterans Day" also had, according to an internet search of military aircraft static displays, a single Phantom F4-D. Since creating an actually awesome Facebook frame for us USAF veterans, and subsequently, one for those in relationships with us at the behest of GF, I'd had the idea to shoot her pin-up style against the backdrop of military aircraft. Coupled with GF's enthusiasm for fulfilling an (unbeknownst to me at the time) lifelong dream of pin-up modeling, we both set off on our separate paths to make this shoot a reality.
Though it was very late Friday night when she concluded her first makeup test, the results were so spectacular, I didn't want to waste the effort, so I shot her against the green screen and pasted her in photos I had taken of random static displays I'd found during our trip to Colorado earlier in the month. Alas, while fun, they were but facsimiles of what I'd hoped to accomplish. We'd planned to hit Emporia the next day, Sunday, and even arose early to accomplish this task, but the weather had not cooperated, being overcast and rainy the entirety of the day. Not waiting to again waste the effort of the second day of makeup, I followed her around the local shops in town grabbing shots where I could. This was cut short due to scheduled production maintenance which kept me up late again as well, which is why Sunday's trip to Emporia was such a madhouse.
We'd slept in. We'd had to in order to have the energy for the trip. But there were also kids to attend to, breakfast to make, and all the other things which go along with a Sunday morning ritual - most of which I performed solo while GF was working on her third and final day of victory rolls and pin-up makeup, which honestly went way over time, but only because we'd just changed over to Daylight Savings Time. It was going to get dark fast once we arrived at our destination, and with that, plummeting temperatures.
First the good news - the static display was completely open to the public - it was not behind an unsightly fence; we had unfettered access to the aircraft. Secondly, it was an actual USAF variant, which I wasn't expecting as the McConnell-Douglas F4 (Phantom) was initially produced as a Naval aircraft and eventually flown by the Marine Corps and Air Force as well. I will add here as well that seven years of Air Force Intelligence studying, among other things, Air Order of Battle and I had no idea the AF variant had a tailhook - so there's that - learning something new every day.
As for the bad, once I'd hauled my gear to the site from the vehicle, I'd found I'd once again left my memory card at home, attached to the computer. Not a problem, I learned early on to carry a hardpack with no fewer than 11 occupied slots. Only, somewhere in the confusion of the weekend, and the quickly approaching darkness, I'd left the hardpack at home. I had no memory cards. Resigning myself to losing light while backtracking into town in hopes of procuring some poorly performing generic card at one of the small-town country stores I remembered placing my backup camera in my tote just in case, which was sitting in the back of the car. I was saved!
I ended up not shooting with fill flash, utilizing the soft, ambient light filtered from the heavy cloud cover, but somehow disabled bracketing halfway through my shoot, and (beyond me) discovered I had my Sigma 50mm F/1.4 Art lens set to (gasp) f/5.6. WTAF? Once I correct that to f/1.4 everything magically fell into place and we had a successful (albeit short) shoot. Happy Veteran's Day!
An Excerpt from my Memoirs - WWII Mission:
Bomb a railroad bridge at Rovereto, Italy
The briefing completed, all mission members stood and hurried outside to waiting airplanes. Soon, the roar of two thousand horse-power engines deafened the senses as 72 airplanes awoke and began moving along the taxiways. Each aircraft arrived at the end of the steel-plank runway in proper sequence to join the circling formation above the field.
( November 16, 1944 )
Its that time of year again where I don my colorful jacket representative of my many tours of duty. When I was younger, veteran's were old men. When I became one myself at 27, it felt weird. I was always the youngest member at the VFW. But as 40 approaches, I can take solace in the fact that I'm becoming that old veteran, certainly by the age of those currently serving.
Today at work there was a ceremony for veterans and that's when I discovered a new bill having been passed into law last month allowing veterans to salute the flag out of uniform. Most of us tried it out during the playing of the National Anthem, and I have to admit, it felt weird.
Then I called my wife's grandfather, who was flight-crew navigator on board bombers during WWII.
No, I didn't really wear the hat ;)
( Defense Authorization Act of 2009 )
Thursday evening in the city forum a thread came across announcing ehowton and drax0r Appreciation Tribal - Fri Night - Victory Party. My wife was initially reluctant to attend due to the short notice, but once she discovered it was the Tribal Council throwing this shin-dig, she became enthusiastic. We were the first ones there. The founders of the Tribal Council appeared to me like royalty that night. They had set aside their two best chairs for Tony and I, with a ribbon-topped ice chest between us. One half was filled with
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drax0r's favorite beer, Texas' very own Shiner Bock and the other half was filled with my drink of choice, Kronenbourg 1664. Once everyone arrived, there was a 20-glass toast to us with champagne. What an honor! As always, they went above and beyond and it was sure a nice time, and a nice turnout. Thank you all!Saturday afternoon was Cub Scouts. We arrived shortly after 1500 and my boy ran off to play with his friends while the wife and I set up our tent. There were no tent stakes in the tent bag. Nonetheless, we set up and loaded up the tent. My wife left us there (which turned out to be approximately one linear mile from our house) and the games began. There was tug-of-war, and capture the flag, the lighting of the fire, magic tricks, songs, hot dog dinner, stories of the Great Indian Chief Wannahockalugie, and yes, I was bored the entire time. I think my son was too. He kept wanting to retire to the tent so I could read his book too him and we could go to sleep. All the other kids (about 80 I guess, though en mass it sounded like a thousand) seemed to be having a good time. I set my chair apart from everyone, hidden in the shadow of a tree, put my iPod on, and lit a cigar (I didn't see any other parent there smoking). Suddenly, it was bliss. I was comfortable, enjoying myself, watching the world in front of me unfold without being a participant. There was a flag decommissioning ceremony about halfway through the evening. They asked all veterans to step forward to participate. I enjoyed that and Honest John who was there in a supervisory role. Without him, it would've been bust. I doubt my son will join again next year, but we have a full year ahead of us to find out.
Sunday I worked. 28GB memory upgrade on a Sun V490. That too, wasn't without its issues, but I was in and out within 5-hours. Due to waking up in a tent that morning, and breaking camp having just downed a Java Monster, I was exhausted by the time I got home from work. It was 1500. It felt like 1900. It really wasn't much like a weekend at all.
This morning was my son's 'Bring a Vet to School' day for Veteran's Day. I didn't know what to expect. The parking lot was ringed with flags, there were chaperone's at every entrance, guiding us to our places. Having arrived at exactly the appointed time, I found 50 other veterans there. Some old men and women, some young kids in uniform currently serving. A couple of other (what I assumed were) retired men in full Class A's. The Cub Scouts posted the colors, we said the Pledge of Allegiance, some lady sang the National Anthem, the 5th Graders did an above average job singing the Armed Forces Medley (did that bring back some memories, I hadn't heard the Air Force fight song in some time) and yes, I got all choked up. I never thought I'd be one of those old men who got all weepy-eyed when the flag passed by in the parade, but there I was. Embarrassing, really. I guess at the same time I was angry that all these young school children were extolling something in which so many people had died. Its a double-edged sword.
At any rate, they'd obviously dedicated a lot of time and energy to this and I couldn't believe how well they pulled it off.
I got to work and there was a very large banner draped on the outside of the fence announcing, "WE HONOR OUR VETERANS." I found out exactly how later that morning.
We each got a piece of cake.
