Published: September 13, 2008 09:11 pm            

My Great Santini

I have a good father.

Not a perfect father, but a man who fills the room with his energy and who, in our last several years together, has been there in the most solid and unfaltering way.

He can be an insufferable ass at times and I love that about him. I have to, I am more like him than I would like to admit. I only suspect this because my mother has leaned into my face a time or two in my life and shouted “You’re just like your *#*@*#*$& father.”

From him I got my red-hot temper, my command of the “sailor’s language” and my lack of control over my love for good food, drinking and romance.

But I also got my love for my chosen faith, my dedication to country, my courage in the ugly face of death, my love and appreciation for life every second I get to live, not to mention my commitment to family, no matter what.

I didn’t always feel like this though. He and I were so similar in my growing-up years that we often clashed loudly and stubbornly. Those encounters usually ended with him yelling at me that I was “bull headed” and I would shout back, “I wonder where the Hell I got that?”

He would smile a sheepish grin and glance sideways at my mom, secretly enjoying my courage, since most of the men who served under the command of Colonel Boyd L. Van Horn were terrified of him.

Now though, he is my touchstone in all areas of my life--the person who I call about even my dating life-the person who heals me even when I have been devastated by the loss of a love and the guy who had the courage to let me go hungry early in my adult life so I would ultimately succeed on my own.

And that might seem common, a father who soothes his bereft daughter, but it was not something I ever thought I would have with him. I have always said I was raised by the Great Santini. So those of you who have seen that movie or read the book by Pat Conroy will understand what I am talking about.

To me, he was bigger than life, sometimes meaner than a snake. His experience in life, his years in a war zone and his ultimately impressive status in the Air Force when he finally retired, seemed to widen the gap between us in my view as a child and young adult. But in recent years, I conjured the courage to not just buck him, but to draw close to him.

He’s 76-years-old now and I have wanted to tell some of his quite impressive stories--get them on paper before he is not here to sit with me and remind me over a martini of his great adventures and in some cases misadventures.

A first one that comes to mind was his leadership of the 24 ship, stacked down flyby for President Harry S. Truman’s funeral in the first few days of 1973.

If you talk to my dad about it, it was just another mission. But to me, for him to be chosen by the highest leadership in this country to lead the flyby for one of our presidents was remarkable.

On that day, dad said he and all 23 of the other A-7s took off and began the formation that was scheduled to fly directly over Truman’s grave site in Independence, Missouri. The flyby was to happen at precisely the same moment the Army was executing its 21- gun salute as the family was graveside.

My dad was being guided on the ground by Major General Waymon Nutt and everything was right on schedule, when two minutes before my dad was to be overhead, he received a call from Gen. Nutt.

“Boyd, I need you to do a two minute turn around,” he said on the radio. “Can you handle it.”

A two-minute turn around with 24 A-7s in a stacked down, diamond formation was going to require some skill. My dad didn’t say this to me, but I already can hear him swearing and wondering what caused this.

It seemed that Margaret Truman had forgotten her purse where she had been sitting on the stage before walking to the grave side and had to go back and get it.

My dad, being who he was,-an absolute ego-maniac, fighter pilot with gunpowder in his teeth- asked no questions, he just executed.

It called for a 60 degree bank of all 24 ships to execute the turn around. For any non-pilots out there, a 60 degree bank is significant and dangerous.

Nevertheless, on that cloudless, cold day in Independence, the gut churning, spine-tingling whine of fighter jet engines filled the air directly above Harry S. Truman’s grave site at precisely the same time the Army was performing its 21-gun salute.

I don’t want to think of my father’s funeral. He will most certainly not receive this honor as he was not the President of the United States.

I have often told him that he would not die, that they would have to knock him in the head on Judgement Day and he laughs.

But he deserves it--a flyby like that. .I just do not know who I would get--who would be good enough to lead it.



Rachael Van Horn is the Assistant Editor of the Woodward News.

        

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