My mom and dad met at the Pla-Mor Ballroom in Lincoln, NE. He was attending UNL--in Air Force ROTC, majoring in Psychology; she was working as a secretary, back in the day when they still had steno pools. Dad fell for Mom on the spot, and asked for her number. She was sure she'd never hear from him, because he didn't write it down, but he proved her wrong--he had one of those gravity-well memories, he never forgot anything. For her part, she thought he was pretty darn good-looking (his pictures do support this opinion :).

Dad graduated in the spring of 1959, and they got married on July 4, 1959. They made a good-looking couple, and Mom was a radiant bride.

Getting married was not nearly as simple as sounds. She was Missouri Synod Lutheran--aka Protestant Catholic; he was Catholic. She was German, he was Polish/Fresian. His parents thought she wasn't good enough for him; her parents told her the marriage was doomed. Family support wasn't a real important concept at that point. She studied and converted to Catholicism before they got married; her father's pastor told her dad that if he walked her down the aisle to marry a Papist, he would be kicked out of the church he'd attended all his life. In other words, a lot of strife.

It all worked out in the end; my uncle walked her down the aisle, and my grandparents and extended family all attended, even though they were heartbroken that she'd married a Catholic. This family drama is why the Irish "Troubles" never surprised me--the Protestants and Catholics in my own family couldn't even get along! :P

My dad entered the Air Force as a Captain. I think he looked damn good in his uniform.

He had always wanted to be a flyboy, but didn't have the eyes for it, so he became a Navigator instead. They made the typical early-military-career perambulations around the country: Sacramento, San Antonio, Wichita Kansas, Wichita Falls Texas, and finally Topeka.

Mom was considered a late-starter; she didn't get married until she was 22 years old; this was unheard of in our family. Mom and Dad started trying for a family immediately, since they felt like they were already behind schedule, but there was no success. They did fertility testing, or what passed for it in the early '60s, and were told they were both "the problem." They despaired of ever having a child of their own, and finally made the decision to adopt.

I was born in 1964, in Topeka, to a teenage unmarried Catholic couple. Details were scarce in those days: Bio Mom had wanted an abortion, Bio Dad had talked her out of it; they were both short; Bio Dad had a history of severe depression and pulmonary problems. That was it, really.

They had to drive down to Kansas City to pick me up (They were in Topeka, I was in Topeka, why Kansas City? No one knows) when I was 3 days old. Dad was impressed with my head full of black hair, and amazed at the tiny-ness of my hands and feet.

Mom was happy, too. She'd had my name picked out since her own childhood, when she named her dolls Christine. Maybe she hadn't done it the old-fashioned way, but hey, she did have a baby girl, and she thought that was all right.

Dad was, as I said, a Navigator. He wasn't just any old Air Force Navigator, though; he was assigned to SAC (Strategic Air Command), which was headquartered at Offut AFB in Omaha, NE.  All his postings were to SAC bases. He was also a member of the 55th SRW (Strategic Reconnaissance Wing).

He was a Navigator on a Boeing 2320 which had been converted to an EB-47E(TT), referred to (incorrectly) in some sources as an ERB-47H--aka a reconnaissance bomber or spy plane. The Navigator sat up in the nose of the plane--small, cramped, and really cold at 35000-45000 feet. The pilots were under the bubble canopy. Two Crows (Electronic Warfare Operators) sat in a tiny cubby in the converted bomb bay, and also froze their tailfeathers off. From Wiki:

Three B-47Es were converted to the highly specialized EB-47E(TT) "Tell Two" configuration to be used for "telemetry intelligence", picking up radio signals from Soviet missile tests and space launches. The Tell Two was the precursor to the RC-135S Rivet Ball and Cobra Ball. The EB-47E(TT)s featured a "Crow capsule" in the bomb bay loaded with the appropriate gear and two ECM operators (known as Crows), and also featured odd and distinctive antennas just below each side of the cockpit. All three of these aircraft were operated out of Turkey, and stayed in service until 1967. The antennas on the nose of the aircraft attracted a good deal of attention from base personnel, and crews made up imaginative stories about them, for example claiming they were part of a "return to fighter (RTF)" defensive system that would cause Soviet air-to-air missiles to loop back and shoot down their own launch fighters. In reality, they were specialized receiver antennas used for intercepting telemetry signals from Soviet space and missile launches.

All 3 of these converted bombers were stationed at Incirlik Air Base, in Turkey. Two of the three crews stood by at all times to scramble in case of a Soviet launch.They flew reconnaissance missions over the Black Sea to the North and Iran to the east, keeping track of USSR weaponry and space launches. Yes, it was classified; it was the kind of mission that if they got caught, shot down, or crashed "over there," the US Government and the Air Force would deny any knowledge of the aircraft or its crew; no rescue would be mounted. Like I said, Dad wasn't a typical Air Force Navigator. :)

Dad was getting to the stage of seniority that he could pick his next duty station, and he and Mom had decided they were going to Germany. More kids were on the To Do list as well; they wanted to have at least 4, maybe 6. He intended to put in his 20 years, retire, go back to school for his PhD, and work as a clinical psychologist. They had their plans all laid out.

We plan, God laughs.

Dad's crew flew a recon mission into USSR air space on April 3, 1965; it seems to have been a typical, uneventful (for some value of uneventful) mission. The pilot, Walt Savage, brought the plane in to land at Incirlik AB, as he had many times before. And then everything went wrong.

The plane was hit by an unexpected wind shear; the force flipped the plane over onto its roof. Dad's navigational equipment broke loose from the force of the impact, and crushed him; he likely died immediately. Capt. Albert Parsons, another crew member (one of the Crows) was critically burned, and later died of his injuries. The other three crew members had no significant injuries.

And just like that, our lives changed forever.

My mother and I were staying with her parents in Nebraska when Dad died. She heard a report on the radio--USAF plane crash at Incirlik--and she knew it was him. She's always said she has a sense about these things, of someone she knows dying, and so she was not surprised when the USAF notification team pulled up in the yard. Everything was a blur to her, after that, up until the burial: TAPS, the 21-gun salute, jets flying over in the Missing Man formation. Then life became horribly, crushingly clear.

She still hates TAPS.

Mom was afraid of losing me as well. I was only 9 months old; the adoption wouldn't be final for another 3 months. Adoptions to single parents were pretty much verboten in that day and age. What if the court took her away from me? Fortunately, the judge had a heart, and finalized the adoption despite Dad's death. His name is listed on my birth certificate, even though he was dead when it was revised.

You may wonder why I am posting a memorial for a man I don't even remember. All I can say to that is, Dad saved my life.

I grew up with what I call "The Gary Myth." My mom was full of stories about how good and kind Dad was, how much he wanted a child, how excited he was when they got the call about me, how much he loved me. I held him in my mind as a different, better model of a man and husband than the model I grew up with; that I deserved a man like him; that I didn't have to marry a jerk like Stepfather #1.

I devoured his library when I was a kid, and it made me feel like I knew him. He was part of the reason that there was never any question that I would go to college. Mom has told me often throughout my life that Dad would be proud of me: for surviving, for thriving, for building a good life for myself, and for helping others. I like to think that's true. And even though I don't believe in an afterlife, I like to imagine that he's up there somewhere, keeping an eye on me, and smiling.

In Memorium:

Capt. Gary Lee Jacobs, USAF d. 4/3/65, Incirlik AB, Turkey

High Flight

John Gillespie Magee, Jr 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.