Bill Brandt

It’s In the Small Details

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A few years ago, I wouldn’t have believed that I’d spend 1-3 hours a night watching YouTube videos. But this has evolved quite a bit from the early days of shaky cams, airplane noise in the background, and questionable advice. The questionable advice is still out there but is swamped by so much good advice and programming.

Although I haven’t flown as a pilot in command of my mighty 100 hp Beechcraft since the late 80s, flying and aviation safety videos have held my interest. Specifically, aviation accidents and their causes.

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Reagan Memories

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Coupla things have jogged me into writing this post. First was the finding an old “Reagan For Governor” button in one of my dresser drawers a few days ago. There are many things that have been lost for decades lurking within those drawers. Still looking for my German Volksmarsch medal I got for walking 25 km one Saturday  along the Moselle (culminating with a beer and a bratwurst!) during my Army days so long ago.

Second was seeing the great biopic starring Dennis Quaid today that opened in theaters a week ago. The movie reminded me of a lot of Reagan stories that I had forgotten.

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Clarence “Bud” Anderson and the Greatest Generation

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A Monument made 12 years ago at Bud’s Hometown Airport in Auburn, CA.

In an airplane, the guy was a mongoose. It’s hard to believe, if the only Bud Anderson you ever knew was the one on the ground. Calm, gen-tlemanly. A grandfather. Funny. An all-around nice guy. But once you get him in an airplane, he’s vicious. Shot down 17 airplanes. Best fighter pilot I’ve ever seen. He’s also the best friend I have in the world. We go back 47 years, Andy and I…

 Chuck Yeager, in his forward to Bud’s book

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Masters of the Air – 100th Bomb Group

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Observations of the series and from other sources

I am 7 episodes into the series, based on the 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts in Britain during WW II, and am thoroughly enjoying it.

I became so interested in the series that I started to read a book on the last surviving member of the 100th Bomb Group, John “Lucky” Luckadoo. I was surprised to learn that the series was so accurate they brought many of the historical figures to life, with no fictional embellishment.

As an aside, the one thing even this author did that bugged me a bit was refer to what was the US Army Air Force as the “Army Air Corps”. It seems a common mistake.  A minor nit perhaps, but by June 1941, the US Army decided that the mission of their Air Force had expanded such that their aviation arm was its own Air Force:

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An Idyllic Home on the Edge of Hell

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I’ve seen a number of WW2 movies over the years one of the more unusual, Europa, Europa, was based on the true story of a Jewish boy whose sister was murdered on Kristallnacht, 1938, and the parents felt it best to leave Germany and go to Poland. The son ends in a Soviet orphanage in the Soviet sector of Poland, and when the Germans invade the Soviet Union, ends up after a long story as an adopted son of a Wehrmacht Captain, who believed that he looked “Aryan” enough that he ended up in a Hitler Youth elite school in Germany. Of course nobody knew he was Jewish in his fight for survival.

The Zone of Interest is also based on a true story, but the British director, Jonathan Glazer, based the screen play loosely on a 2014 book by Martin Amis. Although based on a novel, I would put the movie in the “substantially true” column.

Why?

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