Taking Me Back #mfrwauthor

It's Friday and time for more soul searching. Again, it's a topic that at first glance feels like a repeat of last year's. Then the memorable event was the fall of the Twin Towers. I didn't want to relive those days again so I'm going with another day. An event that popped into my mind was a Pennsylvania airshow that was known not only for its aircraft, but a military vehicle rally.

It was my first overnight assignment as a correspondent without my other half. Remember back then digital cameras didn’t exist, let alone be as omnipresent as they are now. At something like an airshow, you basically got one attempt to capture an image. Talk about pressure. Anyhow, dressed in battle fatigues (sans mark of rank) and with a press badge hung on my belt, three pens and a small steno pad in my pocket, I drove to the airfield gate, where I was promptly stopped by a sentry.

After identifying myself, he telephoned ‘headquarters.’ A few minutes later, a soldier rode up on a restored WWI bicycle with my ‘orders.’ At that point I knew things were going to be interesting. Per orders, still in uniform, I mustered with the reenactors and rode in a vintage jeep as part of the caravan of military vehicles. Now I've been on military bases before (just not in uniform) but until we reached the city proper, while we road through farm fields time reversed itself and we were a World War II expeditionary force.

That set the stage for what made the assignment one of the most memorable. Even now years later,  reliving the experience will make the hairs on the back of my neck still stand up. To set the scene. You are standing beneath the wing of a B-17 bomber. The men around you were in sharply-pressed fatigues while the women wore the long skirts and sported the swept-back hairstyles of the 1940s. The big band tune being broadcast over the loudspeakers stops mid-note. “Pearl Harbor has just been bombed,” echoes over the tarmac.

Even after the crowd of thousands realized it was a replay of a broadcast from December 7th, 1941, they remained in attentive silence, many rubbing goose bumps from their arms. As a side note, I had a similar reaction years later when I stood on the boardwalk near where I live and saw the twin towers shrouded in smoke.

That same announcement was repeated later in the day and since I knew it was combing I was able to watch those around me. Different day, different group of people, and the same eerie feeling. This second day the feeling of being pulled back in time was heightened by the firing of a heavy aircraft engine as soon as the broadcast ended.

If you care to read last year's post on a memorable event, it's the story of my personal experience on a day now simply referred to as 9-11.

There are other memorable events to visit. The list follows.
~till next time, Helen