Mike Marron wrote in message
om...
I was at Albrook Field in the Canal Zone 1952-55, when our
fledgling Air Force decided to host a Central and South
American ' good will ' tour centered around the AF's Thunderbird
Team of F-86s -- and one Chuck Yeager -- who was the AF's renowned
test pilot. The Caribbean Air Command was to be on-site escort
for the tour. All of our staff that could be spared were assigned
duties as well as escorting each of the tour's dignitaries.
snip

That's a fine story, thanks for telling it. I got to meet Gen. Yeager
while I was working at the Daytona Beach airport while attending
Embry-Riddle. Yeager was giving the commencement address (late 1980s)
and some far western state Air National Guard unit had sent an F-4 to
pick him up. The General arrived after the address and changed from his
civilian clothes to a flight suit in the FBO I worked for. He was nice
enough to sign many autographs, especially for those of us college kids
working at the FBO. I held his helmet bag while he climbed up the
boarding ladder. That was a big deal for me, since he was the reason I
started flying.

It was funny to watch all the bystanders, in their graduation duds, get
sandblasted when the F-4 turned out. I guess they didn't believe us
ramp rats when we told them they were soon to be deaf and pelted unless
they moved away from the fence.

--

Scott
--------
"the Arabs should remember that they invaded and occupied important
parts of Europe hundreds of years before the Crusades wars. "
Zuheir Abdallah-columnist for the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat
http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD55103