My father, in the middle, with instrictor cadre

My dad started flying not too terribly long after Wilbur and Orville Wright first flew in 1903.

When World War Two broke out, the U.S. Military was in a world of hurt for aviators for our Army Air Corp and Navy and Marines. And in the 1940s, there were not a lot of people that had actual pilot's licenses and experience in airplanes, partly because of the expense of owning and flying airplanes, and the fact that a full recovery from the Great Depression hadn't really returned our nation back to the original condition it was in, when most people were earning money to afford an airplane.

The nation quickly formed quasi-military flying schools and in this picture, my dad is working for the Pacific Flying School at Gibbs Field in Fort Stockton in 1942.

He taught hundreds and hundreds of young men to fly, many of which didn't even know how to drive a car.