9/11 Remembered — From a Pilot’s Perspective

The woman depicted in this “Rosie the Riveter” iconic wartime poster, Geraldine Hoff Doyle, died on December 26, 2010, in Michigan at the age of 86. Her obituary ran in newspapers across the U.S., catching my attention because of the familiarity of the poster in military memorabilia. Geraldine’s (Rosie is a fictitious name) bandana-wearing image was made famous by a United Press photographer at a Lansing, Michigan, factory where she worked for a brief time early in the war. Her picture was then used by an artist hired by the Westinghouse Company’s War Production Coordinating Committee in order to create posters for the war effort. She married Dr. Leo Doyle in 1943 and worked in his dental office, while raising their six children, until she was 75 years old. To me she represents many hard-working women who rallied behind their nation and their families to do what was needed during a difficult time in our history. Isn’t that what families do?

It was Christmas Eve in Thailand, 1972. Thanks to Armed Forces Radio “Silent Night” was playing in our room . . . but it was not really a “silent” night at all. I was a young Air Force wife visiting my husband serving that year in Southeast Asia—but even in my naïveté, I knew something big was imminent. Linebacker II was in progress—the 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi—and the constant sound of take-offs (“please, Lord”) and landings (“thank you, Lord”) from the Air Base was surreal in dissonance with the sweet music I was hearing on the radio. A rescue was in the works, and the POWs, so long tortured and confined in Hanoi, heard and felt the thunderous aircraft noise with great hope and expectation for their eventual release from captivity.

Sgt. Jacob Daniel DeShazer was a crew member in the legendary Doolittle Raiders, a team of 80 brave military servicemen who volunteered to bomb Tokyo in retaliation for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. DeShazer was among those captured by the Japanese Army after bailing out of his plane over Japanese-occupied China. He spent 40 months in captivity, 34 months of it in solitary confinement, and was the victim of cruel torture and starvation. In his own words, DeShazer said, “My hatred for the enemy nearly drove me crazy. . .