Well, there’s absolutely no doubt that from the first memories that I have of an airplane ride at age two that I was impressed with aviation, airplanes and the heritage, in a way, that my father’s career had established. It just took a little time for me to absorb it all, but it’s really what motivated me to, I guess, feel a security that that’s where I would end up. So I didn’t have to pave my way into that. I just knew that’s what I would do, it was a question of how that would happen. And being a teenager during World War II convinced me that the military was probably the best way to learn how to fly, not just go out to the local little pasture field.
So that moved me toward — there was no Air Force Academy then — but to go toward West Point and from there into the Air Force because at that time when it really became obvious that that was the path they were going to take people from West Point and Annapolis, the Naval Academy, and bring them into the Air Force. So it was a way of being able to do that.
