I dream of when we first met. It’s May
all over again, two years ago when every night stretched away like
a promise, our days eaten up with maneuvers over the border, long
flights and practice exercises and bogey hunting in the twilight
hour when the Canucks seem to come out of the skies to take
potshots at our men stationed on the front.
This was before the war moved into our
own country, the fighting along the edges of the U.S. like flames
crumpling the edges of paper before burning farther inland. I was
flying then, the 123rd’s crack-shot pilot who could hit a target in
a dead spin before pulling up and away—I made the hardest stunts
look easy, and I prided myself in my accuracy. No one shot like me.
No one had the aim, the grace, the sheer luck that seemed to follow
me, cl
