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Show ROBERT THAYER MB R 20 2 him. I have since contacted him, oh, about five or six years ago. One hristma I thought, I wonder if he's still alive? And I went up to the City Library and got a Dallas Texa phone book and there was this name. And his name was Rhea Rutherford. And the reason I knew it was him was because I never heard of a fellow with a name Rhea (pronounced Ray), and he was Rhea E. Rutherford, and I saw his name, and the last I knew he lived in Texas. So I sent him a Christmas card, and I got back the nicest, longest letter, and how tickled he was to hear from me. So I kept in touch with him through Christmas cards. BEC: Is he still alive? ROB: Uh-huh. He's still alive. He was younger than I was. Most of my old friends that I knew in the service are gone. Just like my friends, local friends, are gone. At eighty-six, you're one of the last. BEC: That's right. You're beating the odds, that's for sure. ROB: And to have my wife, too, that's something. A lot of the wives are still alive, but the men, there's not many left. That's sure strange how that works out. BEC: thatROB: So you were over all that, you were in charge of making sure all Now that was just for the squadron. See, there were four squadrons in the group. Then they had a group communications officer, and he was over the whole thing. But when we got overseas, after all this training in Pyote, and then we went to Pueblo, Colorado, for our final training and after-when we got the orders in Pueblo we were going overseas, and by then we had a full complement of aircraft and crews and everything. Now I didn't fly. I'm no hero, I'll tell you that. I was a ground officer, and that was what I did the whole time I was in the service, and I had the utmost respect and 15 |
