The Mustang

The P-51 Mustang! Even the name hints at what it can do in the sky…Free – Fast – Quick – Untamed! It gave all that and much more to the young aviators who came to love it. Lives- saved and lost. Those men and their Mustangs changed the world. My Grandfather, who at the age of 16 enlisted like so many other patriots of the Greatest Generation…the small town boys – their lives forever changed because of the time into which they had been born…FATE…DESTINY…DESIGN. Those same young men being taken to places and events they never dreamed of… the history they would create in their Mustangs…witnesses to mankind’s goodness along with all it’s evil. All this I felt in my Soul when I touched that wing. The black man-the Tuskegee Airmen-the Redtails- who would fight for a country that denied him the respect he deserved…not then. Someday such great men will be met with the honor and respect and gratitude they had so long been denied. All this I felt in my conscience when I touched that wing. This magnificent aircraft that revealed the character of the men whose lives became The Mustang: the engineers who designed it- the crews who maintained it-the pilots who flew it.This I felt in my spirit when I touched that wing. It humbled me to know the amazing heritage of this plane and all it stands for : the sacrifice of my Grandfather and so many of his generation.. I must honor them and we must learn from their history. This I promised to myself when I touched that wing