Citation:
Abstract:
December 8, 2020
Pensacola FL-- Bravo zulu maximus for Chuck Yeager on his service, a life fully and well lived, and for his "no bridge too low" approach to all of it.
Today is a day for solitary reflection on life, and also probably a good bit of bourbon. A legendary icon and true American hero has passed. General Chuck Yeager, always a man among men–and for a time, THE man among men–died last night at age 97.
What the force is to the Jedi, Yeagerisms are to pilots. It is a force that binds us and training must be undertaken to properly use it. Yeager's way was THE way.
Yeager was a WWII hero who once shot down five enemy aircraft in a single day, and a legendary test pilot. As Yeager would dismissively say, he was the first pilot "confirmed to exceed the speed of sound and live to talk about it," but he was also the originator of Yeagerisms, and it was this quality and force of character that Tom Wolfe so aptly later captured and immortalized in The Right Stuff.
Every pilot who has ever kicked a rudder to line up at the top of a loop, landed a crippled plane, ejected from a flaming hunk of falling metal, or walked away from a crash understands Yeagerisms. No matter their personal titer of the right stuff, no matter their accent, they will invariably drawl out the tale in a way that shows they believe doing your duty or your job is the most important thing, but also that coolness while doing it is THE thing. (continued at continued at https://blogs.harvard.edu/kleelerner/chuck-yeager-no-bridge-too-low/ )