Traverse City Record-Eagle

Terry Wooten: Elders Project

Related Photos

  • Terry Wooten

    CSS5769.jpg

  • Jack Reamer is second from the right in the front row. Special to the Record-Eagle

    CSS576E.jpg
November 1, 2010

Lifelines: Honoring veterans near, far

By TERRY WOOTEN Local Columnist

In honor of Veterans Day, I thought I'd share Jack Reamer's story.

Jack, 87, participated in the Kingsley Elders Project and was interviewed by two seventh-grade boys. I wrote the poems. The silences after some of the lines speak quite loudly.

Getting these stories down was a lot like mining. Jack would make a short comment about his war experiences and then pull back. I had to sort through tapes of two interviews and put the poems together like a painful puzzle. I tip my hat to Jack Reamer and all the rest of you guys.

No Way

When the old B-17 flew

into Traverse last year…yes, I went to see it,

but I've never had an urge

to fly them anymore.

 

I flew fifty missions,

and for a long time

I didn't want to fly.

I think you can understand.

 

They tried to make me

a ball turret gunner.

No way was I going to hang

in that damn thing

from the bottom of the plane.

 

In order to get in,

you had to have that turret

in a just-right position,

so you could open the door.

If the power was shot out

you were stuck in there.

 

I was a tail gunner.

Nineteen

I lost friends. (Silence)

I do think about them,

but I'd rather not. (Silence)

I still start shaking

when I think about those things.

 

Never had any nightmares,

but those moments

are like yesterday.

 

I flew my first mission on April 12, 1944,

and my fiftieth on August 19,

so I wasn't there for long.

 

I didn't like getting shot at.

It wore on your nerves.

Only a young guy could take it.

 

Nothing's going to happen to me…that attitude.

I was nineteen when

I finished my missions.

Overseas

We got a brand new B-17 in Georgia.

Then we flew down

to Homestead, Florida…from there to Trinidad,

then down to Belem, Brazil

right on the Amazon River…

from there to Fortaleza, Brazil.

 

Then we jumped across the ocean.

We left at seven o'clock at night

and got to Africa at seven in the morning.

 

I sat in the radio room

on the floor doing nothing

for twelve hours.

Couldn't even sleep.

It took us a whole month

to get overseas.

First Crew

My worst memory

is the flight I missed.

I was on the island of Capri.

 

After twenty five missions,

you were supposed to get

a week of R and R.

I had thirty nine

before they put me on Capri.

 

While I was there,

my group took off to Germany.

They ran into some bad weather.

Most of the planes turned around

and came back.

 

My outfit kept right on going,

and a bunch of German fighters

jumped them.

They got a Presidential citation.

It was kind of ironic. (Silence)

 

I still had to finish my missions.

That was the hard part.

Four Months

Flying out of Italy

we didn't have to fight the defenses

they did in England.

 

But we experienced a lot of flak,

and I flew my missions

in two days less than four months.

We were flying eight to nine

days in a row

without getting a day off.

 

Every fifth bullet

that came out of the gun

was a tracer.

That's what we aimed by.

 

German fighters would line up

three abreast behind a B-17,

and stay there till

they got shot down

or ran out of ammunition.

 

When they pulled out

or got shot out,

another group pulled in. (Long silence.)

Home

One squadron

had done fifty one missions

and not lost a single plane.

Next day

they were wiped out.

All seven planes went down.

 

Another squadron lost four planes.

 

Out of our group,

which was usually twenty eight,

four squadrons of seven planes … (Silence)

twelve of them got it.

 

There's no future

in sad thoughts.

 

After I got through

we flew to Rome

for a two day pass.

I just wanted to get out of there.

 

We just came home

and went back to work.

I didn't fly for a long time.

Finally, I got up nerve enough,

and my wife and I flew

to Las Vegas.

 

Poet Bard Terry Wooten has been performing and conducting writing workshops in schools for 27 years. He is the creator of Stone Circle. Learn more about him at www.terry-wooten.com.

Text Only