Flight of the Forgotten. Mark A. Vance

but it made their sudden separation even more painful.

      Soon, I began to understand why they said they’d met me before as I watched my own image intervene and try to offer reassurance. I was overwhelmed by the inhumanity of it from the outset, mortified at the unbelievable cruelty and injustice of the act that had dishonored these brave men on their way home. It was what followed, though, that cemented my determination to return to this existence and correct it. There had been a cover-up, a massive, well-orchestrated cover-up by the people in charge that had left the Jack Ketchum crew and their sacrifice permanently erased from the record. Their last flight was literally a flight of the forgotten and the reason for it had come from the U.S. government itself, from those they had served with honor.

      Inside that eternal circle, I then began to witness the events leading up to that final fatal encounter. In my mind’s eye, I could see them gathering for a mission briefing several months before the crash. It was the beginning of a tremendously futile effort to survive, the beginning of the end. Hundreds were being lost around them daily. There was nothing special about the Jack Ketchum crew in the late winter of 1944. They were just nine young men with a strong sense of duty and an equally strong desire to stay alive. More than anything else, they just wanted to live.

      The images in my head began slowing to real time then as if I were sitting on that hard wooden bench next to them, waiting for a mission briefing to begin. It felt real, not like a dream at all. I felt each emotion and physical response as I listened to each thought as though it were my own. All around me, there was a rising tide of fear and apprehension as men waited together inside a crowded hut. Events then began passing with agonizing slowness as an incredibly overwhelming sense of homesickness and intense fear of never seeing my loved ones again suddenly enveloped me.

      It was as if I were one of them now, traveling back in time as we waited on that New Year’s Eve in 1944 for a mission briefing to begin. Inside me, I could feel the tension, smell the cigarette smoke and hear the chatter as we waited together on that hard wooden bench. As the minutes passed, we all began to wonder what fate had in store for us, and worry that, if it was bad, would the end at least come quickly?