LEGION
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Legion
Male
44 years old
Tucson, Arizona
United States
 Online Now!
Last Login: 11/26/2009
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LEGION's Interests
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| General | Do Hap Sool, Kung Fu, astral projection, aviation, bicycling, photography, songwriting, guitar, singing, writing, and, bodybuilding - B 17F Flying Fortress, P 51D Mustang, P47 Thunderbolt, SPAD XIII, Fokker DVII, Fokker Dr1, Sopwith Camel, Sopwith Snipe, flying, paragliding, airplanes, Red Baron 3D - RB3D. | | Music | Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Andrews Sisters, Nine Inch Nails, Deftones, Alice in Chains, Puddle of Mudd, Caroline Spine, Revis, Train Wreck, The Cult, Killing Joke, Skinny Puppy, U2, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Heart, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Grand Funk Railroad, Monte Montgomery, B52s, Rush, Nickel Creek, Vince Gill, Deanna Carter, Patty Loveless, Shania Twain, Jo Dee Messina, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Nat King Cole, Billy Holiday, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Ludwig van Beethoven, Amadeus Mozart, Johan Sebastian Bach, and Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovshy, Big Daddy Weave, FFH, Rebecca St James, Beebo Norman, Caedmon's Call. THE PIANISTS: Nora Jones, Carole King, Fiona Apple, Vanessa Carlton, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos. | | Movies | The Passion of the Christ, Gothica, Queen of the Damned, Immortal Beloved, Doctor Stranglove, Hell's Angels, 12 O'clock High, The Blue Max, Between Heaven and Earth, Spies Like Us, The Patriot, Don Juan de Marco, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, You've Got Mail, Forrest Gump. | | Books | James M Allen, As a Man Thinketh. Leo Buscaglia, Love. Milan Kundera, Unbearable Lightness of Being. Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness. | | Heroes | Eddie Rickenbacker, Albert Ball, James McCudden, Rene Fonk, Ernst Udet, Verner Voss, Manfred von Richtofen, Jimmy Doolittle. |
| Groups:
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the Flying Tigers, Deviant Zealots Group
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LEGION's Details
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| Status: | In a Relationship | | Here for: | Networking, Friends | | Orientation: | Straight | | Hometown: | Bossier City - Shreveport, Louisiana | | Body type: | 5' 9" / Slim / Slender | | Ethnicity: | White / Caucasian | | Religion: | Buddhist | | Zodiac Sign: | Aquarius | | Smoke / Drink: | No / No | | Children: | Someday | | Education: | College graduate | | Occupation: | Accountant, but soon a CPA. |
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LEGION's Latest Blog Entry
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Black Hole to Purgatory
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Feelin fine tonight
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Renouncing my faith
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I'm drinking wine !!! 8-P
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Falling in love again.
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LEGION's Blurbs |
About me:
The Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber
of the United States Army Air Force.
Maruaders flying in "combat box" formation.
Another view of the "protective" combat box.
Salute! Call me Legion, for I am many. A former Louisiana State University student, I now study at home in preparation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' certification examination. Yep, I'm aiming for a CPA license. It's going to happen this year, probable this summer! I have people who believe in me, supporting this endeavor I seek to complete. That's a good feeling to know friends and lovers "got your back."
I will be a CPA this year. Nothing will stop me from achieving my worthy goal. Period. That is the American way! That was and still is the only way to victory.
What else? Well, I am a former Air Force Special Operations Command Air Commando news paper weenie! I spent five years at Hurlburt Field, Fla. publishing the weekly base rag. That gig got me a lot of related names, everything from paper boy to news guy and photo guy to The Commando. That last one just happened to be the name of the rag I created every week.
I always wanted to be part of an aircrew, doing all the fun stuff flyboys get to do. Medically disqualified from air service, public affairs, turned out to be something of a blessing because as a non-aircrew personnel, I managed to gain a lot of flying hours under the guise of writing another story about some unit's or flyer's achievement to the various missions each flying squadron practiced when at base.
You gotta be in a C-130 Combat Shadow, in a valley where houses on hilltops are higher than you, to experience life. It's amazing what the 9th Special Operations Squadron can do with a big four-engined Herckiebird.
I enjoy fixin' stuff, lawnmowers, cars, the sink, the chair, the table, most things you know, but not hearts. That you gotta fix that yourself.
As a kid, I drove dad up the wall because he surely thought I would do something "ignernt" like walk off the second floor walkway of an under-construction apartment building that didn't have the rails installed; yeah, I was two years old when that happened to me in Japan. Prolly explains why my feet tingle any time I even think about getting more than two feet off the ground; and yet I am in love with flying and powered parasailing.
Also, I am nephew of J. Robert Leach (deceased May 1991), a Martin B-26 Marauder radio operator who served in the United States Army Air Force during World War II. Uncle Bob flew combat missions over Europe and participated in the June 6, 1944 Operation Overlord landings at Normandy.
During missions, my uncle rode in the radio compartment, meaning he had one tiny rectangular window out of which to see a patch of blue sky, over the left engine nacelle and not much else.
A view similar to what Uncle Bob might have seen from the window just above his head.
The radio compartment as seen from just behind the cockpit. Photograph use permitted by Ray Hamel, professional photographer.
The radio compartment looking into the pilots' cockpit.
When he manned the radios, he flew in the womb with an electric lamp and a little filtered light from the pilots' cockpit to illuminate what he needed to see. In his cramped cavern, the voices of the other men in the plane painted the frenzied pictures of the aerial battles ensuing around him: "There's an M.E. up high about 8 o'clock. Bob, you better get back here and squeeze him a little juice to shoo 'im off."
Yes, my uncle also manned the top turret position in back with the tail gunner, Charlie. Whenever enemy fighters arrived, he would crawl through the bomb bay to the dorsal gun turret. He never mentioned firing at any enemy aircraft. I don't know if ever he did.
Willi Messerschmitt's BF-109, often referred to as an M.E.
by American flyers.
After the fighters broke combat, Uncle Bob would return to his radio compartment next to the co-pilot / navigator. Having pesky fighter swarming around you was not fun. Seeing them pull back from the formation was a relief, but a brief relief. J. Robert's chills really began when the tail gunner would speak again. Every thing would be silent until Charlie came over the radio. He rode in the back, obviously, but with a large window that gave him excellent view of the entire sky for more than 180 degrees coverage. The guy had a shrilly, southern accent when he spoke, but it was not his voice that rattled Uncle Bob. Rather, Charlie's words were cause for unsettling the nerves of the whole crew because his standard pronouncement announced everyone's helplessness in the sky ...
"Here comes the flak."
Well, that was it. You couldn't fight it. You couldn't avoid it. You had to ride through it ... and pray you got to the other side after "bombs away." Just about everyone pulled off his flak jacket and sat on the thing. They figured it provided better protection, but Uncle Bob joked about how they always said, "you gotta protect the family jewels."
Marauders unleash their rain of iron from the heavens.
I swear someone put a curtain over the plane to hide the gremlins feeding bombs through a hole in the top of the plane to create this never-ending bomb release effect.
Interesting note: In all these pictures the dorsal gunners faced their top turrets straight forward or straight back, and never to either side during the run on the target. The Marauder was so sensitive to drag, even drag created by two gun barrels, that setting the guns at any angle deviating from parallel to the flight path would have thrown the airplane out of balance, thus souring the bombadier's aim.
Uncle Bob was one of the lucky ones who returned home alive and in one piece, though he was partially held together by pins. One afternoon, an 88mm anti-aircraft artillery round exploded outside, but right next to, his radio station compartment during a combat mission. Though stricken by enemy flak, of which shrapnel wounded the pilot, the Mary Jo did not crash ... and that was the usual fate of a Marauder after suffering damage. The plane was aptly named the widow maker by American pilots because it was a tricky plane that would rather crash than fly.
Anyhow, Uncle Bob and the copilot managed to return the Mary Jo, and all its crew, to the home base in England. I remember the story he told me about landing the plane. He and the copilot were struggling to get the plane down on its wheels and not its back with the pilot lying on the floor and screaming, "Keep off the damn brakes! Keep off the damn brakes!"
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Who I'd like to meet:
Honest and confident people who possess powerful drives. I surround myself with people who are sure of themselves and their places in this world.
Pilots of all manner are extremely welcome here ... the same goes for accountants and business professionals.
I am also looking to network with people associated with Great War and World War II reenactments.
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