Fluttering Leaves and the Fighter Pilot: From Naive Country Kid to Top Gun Fighter and Doctor of Philosophy and Corporate Ceo

By Colonel William D. Garner Ph.D.

This book contains inspirational messages coming from the grassroots of a life well lived. It holds up the possibility of achievement by anyone, regardless of their beginning.

Bill Garner was a painfully naïve country kid. He lacked career guidance but had an abundance of ambition. He pursued, with consuming vigor, a vision of what his life might be and came to realize his vision during a long life of successful endeavors. This is a how to guide to success in challenging times.

Bill shares many lessons he learned along the way and offers a personal philosophy of life that others might adopt for their own lifelong benefit.

He is a gifted writer. You will gallop with him through terrifying pony rides that end in no imaginable measure of glory; rather, in huge crushing disappointments. You will be transported to the complex cockpit of a Mach 2 fighter aircraft as you accompany him on harrowing missions in the black of night and driving rain during the Monsoon Season of Southeast Asia. Soaring tens of thousands of feet above the hostile terrain of North Vietnam and Laos, you will ride through in-flight refueling while connected perilously to a KC-135 flying gas station, soon thereafter to be shot at – and too often hit – by some of the most accurate and deadly antiaircraft artillery gunners the world has ever known.

Following combat, he advanced through several assignments in Europe before attending the Air War College, en route to the Pentagon, his last assignment. He retired from the Air Force after 26 years of active duty.

Bill shares his experiences in the two later careers of health services management and real estate. You will witness his innovative successes as he builds new and diversified programs and makes existing ones better.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664196964

Colonel William D. Garner Ph.D.

to be followed

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Colonel William D. Garner, Ph.D.. 829556

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021922129

Rev. date: 12/22/2021

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

BOOK ONE: GROWING UP AND REVVING UP

Part I: Muse

Chapter 1: The Fluttering Leaf—An Analogy

Chapter 2: Scope

Chapter 3: Overview

Chapter 4: A Fly on the Wall

Part II: A Slice of Family History

Chapter 5: The Beginning

Chapter 6: The Garner-Vaughn Union

Chapter 7: Hello, World!

Chapter 8: Other Lessons I Would Learn

Chapter 9: Reflections on a Philosophy

Chapter 10: My Silver Lining

Chapter 11: Early Years

Chapter 12: World War II Years

Chapter 13: Return to Allen Jay

Chapter 14: Joe College

Chapter 15: Wide World of Work

BOOK TWO: AIRBORNE AND CRUISING

Part I: Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Chapter 1: On to Active Air Force Duty

Chapter 2: Primary Flight Training—Kinston Air Base, North Carolina

Chapter 3: Basic Flight Training—Laredo AFB, Texas

Chapter 4: Graduation with Honors

Chapter 5: Instructor Pilot Training—Craig AFB, Selma, Alabama

Part II: An Overseas Assignment

Chapter 6: Europe and Jet Fighters—Hahn Air Base, Germany

Chapter 7: Joining a Fighter Squadron

Chapter 8: Learning the Ropes

Chapter 9: Finally: Combat-Ready Fighter Pilot

Part III: Scholarly Pursuits—Academia, Here I Come

Chapter 10: The University of Georgia at Athens, Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps

Chapter 11: Wrangling for a New Assignment—Back to the Fighter Cockpit

Chapter 12: Combat within View—Finally

Part IV: Into the Fray

Chapter 13: The Eighth Tactical Fighter Wing, Wolfpack, Royal Thai Air Force Base, Ubon, Thailand

Chapter 14: Anatomy of a Combat Mission

Chapter 15: Hours of Boredom—Moments of Stark Terror

Chapter 16: Sundown Patrols—Busting the Sneaks

Chapter 17: Becoming a Wing Weenie

Chapter 18: Devising New Interdiction Tactics

Chapter 19: High Noon Showdown—and Disaster

Chapter 20: Time for Huge Changes!

Chapter 21: Operation Pressure Points Is Born

Chapter 22: Getting Out of Another Dodge

Part V: Back to Europe

Chapter 23: Thirty-Sixth Tactical Fighter Wing, Bitburg Air Base, Germany

Chapter 24: A Wing Weenie yet Again

Chapter 25: USAFE Headquarters, Lindsey Air Station, Wiesbaden, Germany

Chapter 26: South to the Fortieth Tactical Group, Aviano Air Base, Italy

Part VI: Return to Academia

Chapter 27: Air War College, Air University, Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, Alabama

Chapter 28: To the Pentagon, the Puzzle Palace

Chapter 29: Escaping the Palace and Retirement

Chapter 30: Recounting Good Times—A Reflection

BOOK THREE: FIRST POSTFLIGHT CAREER

Part I: Goodbye, Air Force

Chapter 1: Civilian Again

Chapter 2: New Horizons—Health Services Administration

Chapter 3: First Project

Chapter 4: Academia Again

Part II: Moving Forward

Chapter 5: George Washington University

Chapter 6: A New Career

Chapter 7: Getting to Work

Chapter 8: Critical Elements

Chapter 9: Gratifying Aspects

Chapter 10: Customer Service Program

Chapter 11: Identifying Our Customers

Part III: Doctoral Studies

Chapter 12: Ongoing Progress

Chapter 13: Proposing the Dissertation

Chapter 14: Final Defense

Chapter 15: Reflections

Chapter 16: Gift and Tragedy

1BOOK FOUR: SECOND POSTFLIGHT CAREER

Chapter 1: On to Other Pursuits—Real Estate

Chapter 2: Creating Corporate Form

Chapter 3: Branching Out

Chapter 4: Room for Humanity

EPILOGUE

Notes

APPENDIX

To my family.

Preface

Four separate divisions (books) comprise these writings that cover four distinct periods—growing up and pursuing three widely disparate careers.

Book 1, Growing up and Revving Up, chronicles my early years and growing love for airplanes within a slice of my family’s history. It describes the experiences my family and I had before, during, and after World War II and the several moves we made as I was growing up. It relates my studies at the University of North Carolina and commission as second lieutenant in the United States Air Force.

Book 2, Airborne and Cruising, relates the many assignments I had during twenty-six years of active duty. It covers my early pilot training and subsequent duty as a T-33 jet flight instructor at Laredo, Texas, followed by my transition to the F-100 Super Sabre at Hahn Air Base, Germany, and then a tour as assistant professor of aerospace studies at the University of Georgia at Athens. Thereafter, a combat tour in Southeast Asia at Ubon Air Base, Thailand, was followed by tours at Bitburg Air Base, Germany; U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) headquarters at Lindsey Air Station, Wiesbaden, Germany, and Ramstein Air Base, Germany; and Aviano Air Base, Italy. Air War College at Montgomery, Alabama, came next, followed by my final air force assignment at the Pentagon, Washington, DC.

Book 3, First Postflight Career, describes my retirement from the air force and entry into a second career in health services administration and concurrent studies in pursuit of a doctor of philosophy degree.

Book 4, Second Postflight Career, relates entry into my third and last career—that of real estate, property management, and investment—and eventual retirement.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to those who have taken the time to assist in the data-gathering process for this writing. To the many who gave welcome boosts and compelling encouragement throughout my careers, I offer a most enthusiastic thank you.

First, my parents often shared family history, though I failed to fully appreciate just how much they could have imparted had I pursued a more vigorous probing of their wisdom and knowledge. Having left home for university at the age of seventeen, much valuable time with them was missed due to my youthful lack of foresight and a keener interest in pursuits that just naturally grabbed my attention. The time I missed with them is my deep regret.

Second, my children—John, Dean, and Leil Yvette—and beloved late wife, Olga, provided a rich backdrop of reflection and support that lent an enduring sense of tolerance and encouragement. Moreover, Leil was my entrepreneurial partner, I at the ripe old age of sixty-one. John and Dean, both accomplished writers and editors in their own right, were always ready to review and edit my writings. I suspect they took particular delight—many times—in correcting the old man’s writing.

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Bill and Olga holding faithful pet Chaney,

backed by John, Dean, and Leil Yvette

We lost Olga, most tragically, too soon in 1992 at the age of fifty-seven. Ten years of grieving and painful adjustment followed.

Now more than eighteen years later, my loving and supportive wife, Evelyn, has helped create and sustain an atmosphere and environment that engenders free rein of my time, thoughts, and reflection, without which these writings would have been impossible. Thanks, Evelyn, also for spending your valuable time reviewing my work and offering incisive critique and enhancing advice.

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Commander Evelyn L. Moy, USN-retired

Colonel William D. Garner, USAF-retired

Special thanks to my youngest sister, Jean, for her exhaustive research of the Garner family tree. She spent countless hours in the North Carolina state and county offices of records, online repositories, and local libraries, poring over reams of details. She expended valuable time and great energy in her tireless efforts to winnow out and piece together as much of our meaningful history as possible.

Jean’s efforts have been augmented by most valuable input from other siblings, especially my younger sister, VonElla, and Phil, our baby brother. Their contributions have added enriching flesh to the body of information that lends significant meaning to who we are, where we have been, and what we project for our individual and collective futures.

Thanks to cousins Marlene, Deanna, Rhonda, Catherine, and others for their valuable stewardship and offering of many family photographs and memories.

I enjoyed the support and encouragement of many people with whom I worked before, during, and beyond my twenty-six years of military service. Many thanks and much gratitude to the following:

Clyde Morrison—owner of the auto parts distributorship in High Point, North Carolina—bestowed upon me two significant gifts on my graduation from high school in 1951: First, he gave me my first full-time job. Second, the experience I gained sweeping floors early each morning and then delivering auto parts for the rest of the (very hot) day convinced me that it was not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. There had to be a change—and fast.

Tommy Cooper, years later Captain Thomas Cooper of Eastern Airlines, showed me the early flying ropes as we lumbered along between High Point and Chapel Hill in his Piper J-5 Cub aircraft during our college days and entrusted that Cub to me for my first-ever solo flight.

John Hill—my civilian contract instructor in the Piper PA-18 Cub and the T-28 Trojan at Kinston Air Base, North Carolina—taught me, among many other things, not to wiggle the control stick when there were many more important things to tend to. He was quick to turn me loose when solo time was right. He gave me a great boost during primary flight training and superb preparation for the next phase of my flight training.

Then lieutenant Richard Bruder—long-suffering instructor in the T-33 Shooting Star, my first jet—propelled me to high achievement in basic flight training at Laredo AFB, Texas.

Colonel (then lieutenant) Charles Charlie Brown paved the way for bigger things as I gained experience as a fledgling instructor pilot, also at Laredo.

Later in my career, Colonel Levi Chase—a highly decorated ace fighter pilot of World War II and the deputy commander for operations (DCO) in the 50th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW), Hahn Air Base, Germany—made my long-cherished wish to become a full-fledged fighter pilot a reality there in the 10th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS).

Many years later, during my combat tour in the 8th TFW, at Ubon, Thailand, Colonel Billy McNair, my supervisor in the 497th TFS and later on the wing staff, supported me in many ways, then and later, as my squadron commander at Bitburg Air Base, Germany.

Late in my combat tour, I would have the rare opportunity to take a couple of flights with then colonel (later lieutenant general) Walter Druen Jr., respectfully—and discreetly—referred to as Black Dan. General Druen lent essential support to a combat operation that I had conceived and fleshed out with the assistance of weapons officers and others in the wing. He would account for my receiving a bit longer, albeit richly rewarding, tour of duty as I helped implement Operation Pressure Points, a different approach to the interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam, through Laos, to South Vietnam and the creation of the first-ever Nite Owl F-4 Phantom II high-speed forward air controller (FAC) program for night operations.

General W. L. Bill Creech gave me a peach of a job at headquarters of USAFE at both Lindsey Air Station, Wiesbaden, Germany, and Ramstein Air Base, Germany, tasked to create and implement the new command weapons and tactics division, thereby affording me a highly rewarding first taste of the fast-moving and stimulating world of higher headquarters.

General (then colonel) John Pete Piotrowski introduced me to even greater responsibilities attendant with duties as his director of flight operations of the 40th Tactical Group at Aviano Air Base, Italy. General Pete is the smartest man in any room. It was quite an honor to enjoy the confidence he placed in me in a very demanding position.

After I retired from the air force, Jack Ryan—president of Ryan Advisors, a health services consultancy in the Washington, DC, area—took me under his wing as an intern and prepared me for further service in the health-care field.

After that consulting stint, Captain (Dr.) Martin Valaske, USN-retired, selected me over many other applicants to initiate a quality assurance program (QAP) within the Medical Faculty Associates’ Ambulatory Care Center of the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Joe Wall—a fellow Tar Heel, who grew up in Thomasville, North Carolina, less than ten miles from my home in High Point—became a close friend in the real estate business. He was a reliable source of guidance and support as we slogged through the precarious mine fields of that industry. Tragically, Joe passed away in 2015 after extended illnesses. He is sorely missed.

I am most grateful to Dan King, Lieutenant General Dan Druen, Gordie Tushek, Captain Thomas Cooper, Colonel Cary Doc Broadway, and Lieutenant Colonel Sheldon Goldberg for their review of all or portions of the manuscript and for providing very helpful feedback.

These folks and many others too numerous to name provided the shoulders on which I was able to reach a measure of personal success and professional productivity. I am ever grateful for their selfless support throughout my long and enjoyable life.

Special thanks to the staff of the National Museum of the United States Air Force for providing excellent images of the aircraft I flew during my air force career and to my ever-supportive wife, Commander Evelyn L. Moy, president of Inkwell Inc., for illustrations of geographical areas in North Carolina and Southeast Asia.

Book One: Growing up and Revving Up

Part I: Muse

CHAPTER 1

The Fluttering Leaf—An Analogy

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The delicate, fluttering leaf is the newest manifestation of life on the tree. It is fragile. It is tentative. It can survive and spread its benefits in a display of comforting shade—or die an early death. Its destiny depends on many whimsical variables, vagaries, and caprice. Given a friendly environment, it can rapidly grow and develop into healthy foliage. It can add its small yet potent dimensions to the soothing shadows provided by its mother tree. It can serve as the vehicle by which the moisture of the atmosphere and the warm rays of the sun are transported along its stem to the twig along the branch to the trunk and then to the roots in a synthesis of growth and sustenance. On the other hand, it can fall prey to high winds, careless passersby, devastating drought, or the trimmer’s blade—and die young. Such are the uncertainties of life, be they pertinent to the lowly leaf or to higher forms of life.

The healthy leaf, strong and sturdy of stem, with its own built-in strengths and determination to survive, will continue to develop to a more mature point of contribution. One must take on a degree of faith that a given leaf has determination, but it is a good starting point to help explain, in part, how one leaf survives and another fails to achieve its full potential due to untimely death. There will be some measure of luck involved, no doubt.

Metaphor for Human Life

As an analogy, the human leaf faces much the same circumstances and challenges beginning with its exit from the womb. It is subject to the high winds of time, the perhaps careless attention of another, the many and various turbulent conditions of early life. Some will not survive. Most, however, will. The survivors will be faced with multitudes of crossroads in life and seemingly overwhelming choices at each intersection of development. Both nature and nurture will be in evidence and will make, by default, many of the decisions that take place as the tyke progresses ultimately to adulthood. However, there will come a time when our growing leaf encounters the imperatives to make its own choices when it experiences growing maturity and capacity to formulate its own decisions.

What will those decisions look like? What will they portend for the life of the person involved? Will they be frivolously made, thereby passing up great opportunities? Or will they derive from meaningful thought and result in gratifying outcomes? It now becomes the person’s responsibility to forge one’s own way in the world. The efforts can be productive or a huge waste of human potential. It becomes incumbent on the person, and the person alone at this point, to make those decisions and to live with the consequences.

Personal Choice

I, a fluttering leaf, was born to fragility. My birth was most unorthodox, my early life somewhat perilous, my problematic progression through puberty, the teen years, and early adulthood tenuous. The deck was stacked against me in a number of ways. I departed Mom’s womb a good bit from what is routinely considered a strong and symmetrical physique. I had many allergies, my sinuses gave me fits, my eyesight was not the best. I might have succumbed to these many limitations in a fit of resignation. The good news is that I did not give up.

With considerable tenacity, I adjusted, compensated, and doggedly worked my way through the difficulties with enough success to pursue my dreams and to achieve seemingly unattainable goals that I set for myself. I simply refused to take no for an answer. Few, if any, among my family and friends, save my parents, knew of the struggles I experienced as I developed throughout life. Yet my story has some of the same degrees of success that so many others of my family enjoyed. Those other members also could as easily be the main player in this tale. My story is singled out because I know it best.

Onward and Upward

This is not a pity party. I really have no big complaints about my life and the obstacles I had to overcome. Perhaps they made me stronger. As I rocked along, those obstacles just seemed to be a part of life. Knowing nothing of the smooth sailing of others, I had no basis on which to compare my situation with theirs. In such case, ignorance was a kind of bliss, although I would gladly have accepted a better set of life circumstances had I known what I was missing and could have been endowed, by some miraculous transformation, with better personal equipage. So I just accepted my lot and pressed on. It wasn’t an easy path, but again, there was no perceived external base on which to compare my circumstances with that of others.

A Message for ____________________?

I dwell in this area to make a salient point: I have enjoyed a measure of success in my life. It did not come easily. It took a lot of extra effort to overcome shortcomings, having started out quite a bit behind the power curve of endowments. Knowing my limitations, I put forth extra effort to come from behind to first catch up with the status quo and then to forge ahead to some higher level of achievement. I believe that a combination of a degree of intelligence and very hard work enabled me to get in front of many others who might have taken life for granted and sauntered while I sprinted. At any rate, it worked for me. Also, I avoided their dust while kicking up my own. Apologies for the dustup if they were in close trail.

A Spotlight of Sorts

In relating many of my own experiences, I have chosen to highlight certain achievements I have enjoyed. Where I have excelled, I spell it out but with a noble purpose. Some might be inclined to label me as boastful. So be it, though I consider that a bum rap. My reason to emphasize those achievements is to hold up for others’ viewing what is available to them too. It is simply to reinforce my firm belief that most people, given a fierce determination, fire in the belly, and a bunch of hard work, can achieve much the same successes—and more.

A little luck helps too. Someone has observed that luck is where preparation meets opportunity. So perhaps there is a bit more to luck than, well, luck.

I hope my modest successes will serve, in at least a small way, as an incentive for others to push themselves to higher levels of achievement, whatever their endeavors—that they will prepare themselves for the opportunities. It is there for the taking. The ball is in their—your—court.

The Prime Message

If there is one singularly important message I would put forth, it is the following:

Regardless of the circumstances of your birth, the travails of your early life, the rocky road of your teens, the setbacks of your early adulthood, the frustrations of your middle years, you can prevail. Your success, however, will depend on:

1. a clear vision of what you want of your life,

2. a definitive plan to pursue your vision,

3. a fierce, unswerving application of all the strength of your mind and body to the task, and

4. a dogged and unrelenting determination to follow through to ultimate success.

This is a tall order, to be sure. You will have setbacks, ups and downs, a veritable roller-coaster ride from time to time. The trajectory of your vector, however, will not be measured by the fluctuations along the way but by the ever-ascendant arc to that ultimate success.

Never doubt your ability to follow through. Never look back except to reflect on lessons learned along the way. Once considered, redirect your attention to the road ahead, having incorporated that newfound education into an appropriately modified plan of action going forward.

To wit, if you work your ass off, you’ll do okay. (Short of that, you’ve only yourself to blame.)

Keep these words in mind because that’s exactly what I did. I just kept my nose to the grindstone. I went from a naive country kid to an incredible life. The nation afforded me experiences—in the military and private sector worlds—far beyond what I could have ever expected. It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve.

CHAPTER 2

Scope

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Many events have shaped my character and that of my family. In reviewing the scant bits of information, word of mouth, and sometimes over-the-top exaggerations visited on me in my lifetime, I find that very little has been chronicled about my ancestry, whether deeply ancient, merely old, a while back, more recent, or in the present. So I have undertaken to spell out events that, in my considered opinion, might prompt others to carry forth the historical recordings of our families so that much more, eventually, will be known about our clan.

Perhaps my contemporaries and survivors will then, in fact, realize through their own efforts a completer and more successful product than what I might achieve herein. Three cheers and strong tailwinds for all who carry the word forward.

Focus

After a partial family history, I relate my experiences while pursuing three disparate careers during my life: the United States Air Force as an officer and fighter pilot, health services administration as director of clinical and patient affairs in the ambulatory care center of a major university-based medical center, and real estate as a realtor, property manager, and investor.

I share a bit of my personal philosophy in basic terms: You must earn your own way. You must work before play but balance labor and rejuvenation so as to maintain endurance and enthusiasm. Along the way, you must save for a rainy day to be independent of others in your later life. Having reached those later years of life by adhering to your goals of financial security and good health and having done so in a balanced way, you will be able to enjoy those times with travel, golf, tennis, needlework, exercise, healthy lifestyle, badminton, tiddlywinks, or whatever is your pleasure. So when you come to reflect on your life, you will be able to look back without regret, fear, or recrimination. I. D. Yalom, also cited later, opined, The amount of death terror experienced is closely related to the amount of life unlived. So live life to the fullest and face the end with much less trepidation, if any.

CHAPTER 3

Overview

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These are my musings. They are from what I have personally experienced throughout my long life—now eighty-seven years and counting—and what I have gleaned from the experiences of others, those being sometimes too painfully sketchy, sometimes too disappointingly discontinuous yet sometimes of almost overwhelming brilliance and acute vividness. With humble apologies beforehand for occasional, perhaps often, egocentric carryings-on, I declare now that you will note—if you choose even to note over time any of that which follows—a good bit more about myself than of any other one person in my life. That is because I have undertaken the effort to assemble as much information about my family and me as practicable. I, of course, being myself, will have related more events from my own perspective—naturally—than from other family members as I have been with me far more than I have been with others, whether good or otherwise. That’s just as it is—a fact of life.

Otherwise, skimping on my own personal revelations might leave the impression of something to hide—embarrassing cover-ups, possibly a bit of self-loathing, and even the cloaking of closet-hidden skeletons.

What It Is Not

That doesn’t mean that these musings are about full disclosure, telling it all. No way. That would often be as needlessly painful as hell in August.

To the Point

It does mean that I wish to dwell on the things that I have truly cherished about my life as enriched by the love and support of my family, relatives, and friends. In so doing, one will find that some of the revelations herein will have less meaning as historical accounting if there are not bits of self-deprecation, to the point of (mild, please) embarrassment here and there. For if we cannot laugh at ourselves, we have no right to laugh at the goofs, foibles, or stumbling of others. Won’t that be hypocrisy?

So my perspective, indeed, skews toward the personal. So far, I happen to have varied and blessed experiences that I would have missed had I not fled the confines of my early life. Had I not sensed that a whole lot of fascinating things and times awaited me out there, I might have led a rather mundane existence. Instead, I successfully built three varied and interesting careers and would not pass up the opportunity to plunge into a fourth if not for the lure of escapes to Alaska, Hawaii, Paris, China, Germany and the other European countries, and the Caribbean (eastern and western) and delightful cruises along the waterways of Europe and China. Viva la getaway!

The characters in each of those careers have been so varied as to astound one’s sense of expectations. How can a bunch of egotistical fighter pilots not be quite different from a group of equally egotistical medical doctors except that each of these two groups will, indeed, vie for the prize of which one possessed the most egocentric makeup? Then there are the differences shared by the pilots and the docs on the one hand and those characterizing the motley makeup of the gaggle known as real estate agents, property managers, and real estate investors on the other. Now there is a conglomeration of colorful characters to behold in any broker’s office on an early Monday morning training day—or at the annual Christmas party.

Career 1

The first of these careers enabled me to fly the fastest and most advanced jet fighter aircraft in the world and to become a senior officer in the United States Air Force. In the course of twenty-six years of continuous active duty, I traveled to more than twenty-five countries, venturing into the far reaches of four continents. I flew over the verdant hills and mountains of France and Germany low enough to see the splendid details of fascinating countryside—cows grazing and farmers tending their fields. Neither group, no doubt, appreciated the roar of my engines as I zoomed just feet above their lovely terrain—and them.

My travels took me over the desert of North Africa low enough and at such high speeds as to kick up plumes of dust and dirt from the sands of time. I accumulated more than four thousand hours in the air, soared many times above fifty thousand feet, flew 241 combat missions—most of them at night, many in dense weather, too many getting shot at (and hit)—and lived to tell about it. That was quite a ride. I met and served with some of the most remarkable people one could possibly hope to know. Senior officers, peers, and subordinates alike contributed to the rich events that I would experience and enjoy as I contributed my humble bit to the defense of these beloved United States of America.

Career 2

The second career I embarked on, immediately after retiring from the air force, involved creating and administering for more than a decade a quality-of-practice program in a major university-based medical center that closely monitored and reported the findings of the performance of hundreds of those proud and egotistical physicians. These responsibilities placed me in the unenviable position of overseeing the clinical and patient affairs of the medical practice. Every passing day brought the distinct possibility of summary firing that was well within the purview of those over-the-top, egocentric doctors of medicine. A dicey row to hoe, indeed! Job security was a myth. Not only did it keep me enormously humble but it also kept me ever mindful of the quite generous military retirement stipend that enabled me to embark on this precarious career path in the first place without experiencing numbing anxiety, gnawing hunger, or abject poverty.

Career 3

The third venture included a relatively modest yet successful real estate sales and property management brokerage, an area where one’s success depends on one’s willingness to closely monitor the market, time one’s actions in that market, and have the inclination to take calculated risks that could bring gratifying returns or result in disastrous consequences. I was most fortunate to enjoy the former while avoiding the latter. Luck, too, is very much the rewarding outcome of fervent, persistent, and diligent pursuit of one’s passions.

Blessed Life along the Way

Above it all and to top it off, I came to enjoy a beautiful and talented family and made a multitude of wonderful friends and associates along the way. Yes, eighty-seven years and counting have comprised a most gratifying journey. God willing, I have not finished yet.

Prudence

I hope that I have employed discretion with regard to the identity of my family members as well as friends and others of acquaintance. It will be ill advised indeed to involve others and then hold them up to embarrassment, whether earned or unjustly fingered. So should there be any occasion to relate the unsavory specific identities, I shall give way to the telling of events that spare the guilty of exposure. After all, in paraphrasing Falstaff, Discretion is the better part of valor and, may I add, also the better part of domestic tranquility and avoidance of family feuds.

CHAPTER 4

A Fly on the Wall

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Our family has been compelled to fierce independence. Perhaps it’s just in our genes. Virtually every one of us from the five generations addressed herein has become a successful entrepreneur. Our pioneers—primarily from England, Scotland, Ireland, and also from France—were my paternal grandmother, Dora Elizabeth Garner, and my maternal grandparents, William and Ella Vaughn. They started the tenacious practice that continues to the present within the immediate and extended family.

Dora, Gramms, born in 1875, raised her offspring, yes, often haphazardly with no outside means of support. Yet she did it. Right up to the time of her death in 1964, she maintained a small store of staples on North Carolina State Route 109, just north of Denton, North Carolina. How she was able to replenish I do not know. It must have taken quite an effort to keep the store stocked with goods desired and purchased by her neighbors and passersby and also ensure her continuing personal cache of snuff. To prove her efforts, she was featured in an article in the regional newspaper. Granny Garner’s Store became known far and wide—well, at least throughout that part of the county.

Take for another example one of her offspring, a country boy from that tiny town in central North Carolina, with almost no formal education becoming the founder of three small businesses. Education challenged, he nonetheless taught himself what he knew. And that was quite a lot. Yet he managed every part of his several businesses and became the respected and revered leader of a very popular Bible study group within his church. The same country bumpkin became a U.S. Navy veteran at just fourteen years of age. This was my dad, and these are just a few examples of the many other achievements and extraordinary events that have emanated from this ordinary family.

So read on. Be that fly on the wall. You might be informed and surprised and even entertained from time to time. You just might find yourself occasionally laughing with us as you undoubtedly will also find cause, probably frequently, to laugh at us, though it is hoped for more of the former than the latter cause for amusement.

The Journey Herein

The trajectory of these writings proceeds generally from start to finish, from then to now, from birth to whatever. Along the way, however, I have occasionally succumbed to strong temptation to veer here and there, now and then, off that trajectory to double back and otherwise fill in some of the events via side trips. This might be a bit disconcerting at times. I hope not. Rather, I hope that it serves to add to the mosaic without resulting in mindless rabbit trails to a distracting nowhere.

I, of course, hope that you will find these writings interesting. I believe you will figure out the organization such that you can easily move among the books, parts, chapters, and highlighted paragraphs so as to pick and choose, if you wish, specific areas of particular interest to you as you go along. Above all, I hope that I have related engaging experiences and offered you a bit of savory food for thought.

Part II: A Slice of Family History

CHAPTER 5

The Beginning

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Our family history obviously dates from way back there; however, notwithstanding Jean’s diligent research and VonElla and Phil’s personal revelations, so much else remains unknown and, anyway, would probably be so distant as to grow pale with time and distracting in the telling. Yet Jean has uncovered at least a sketch of our family tree going back to the 1700s. Latter-day accounts of our ancestry are quite interesting.

The little town of Denton, North Carolina, situated in the Piedmont section of the state, figured quite large as a settling place for the Garners. The first to arrive were J. Ivey Garner and Alice Lucinda Skeen Garner. They settled in Denton in 1876. It was five years later before B. I. Harrison and J. M. Daniel would eventually build a store at the crossroads that pinpointed Denton. Mr. and Mrs. Garner built a home about a half mile north of the crossroads. A large part of the present town of Denton was covered with virgin timber, a dense wilderness where tall forest pines, marsh oaks, hickory trees, and willows obscured the sunlight during summer months.

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J. Ivey Garner and Alice Lucinda Skeen Garner,

late 1800s, pioneers in Denton, North Carolina

We’re talking primitive here.

The nearest store at the time was located at Jackson Hill, then a thriving village five miles away. It usually required the better part of a day for the Garners to go to Jackson Hill to buy coffee, sugar, and other luxuries and necessities that could not be produced on the farm. And we often fret over having to drive to the corner drugstore half a mile away! Go figure. Things did improve as time passed.

I have chosen to pick up our story about a quarter of a century later to concentrate on our history from my father’s and mother’s coming of existence. I find that I can barely wrap my mind around that much without diluting the whole. So notwithstanding the interesting history of earlier times, let’s avoid millennia or eons. How about a hundred and fifteen or so years ago, from about 1906?

Around that time, Dora Garner and a Dr. Anderson, a country doctor there in Denton, presumably came together long enough to unite sperm with ovum. We know that Dora, my paternal grandmother, was midwife for Dr. Anderson. Though records are unclear, it might be possible that Grandma took a bit fancier than warranted to the wife part of her title. Nonetheless, let’s give the benefit of the doubt about actual holy wedlock as mitigating and exonerating records might exist that we have not yet uncovered. Moreover, common law was practiced much more in those times. Mind not. Life moved right along.

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Grandmother Dora Garner, matriarch,

on break from Granny’s Store

(being her own boss)

Enter Dad

Voilà! Talmadge Wade Garner, my dad, came along in due course. Never a kinder nor gentler man ever walked the face of this earth or kicked up more dirt clods around Denton than my dad. That he was such a kind and gentle person was, in and of itself, a miracle, for he would have had every right to be resentful, bitter, maladjusted, and combative. He somehow got a grip, to his