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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c h a p t e r t w e n t y - e i g h t ........................................................... washington duty We found a house. It was a nice little place. We had delightful neighbors across the street and were only a couple of blocks away from a bus line where I could ride to work and let the bus drivers worry about finding the Pentagon for me. I found a pleasant boss, an empty desk, and some nice guys to work with (some of whom I knew), and it seemed that my job had something to do with airplanes. I wasn’t quite sure about that, but I figured I could learn. I quickly found out that I was a strange duck in the building. I was one of only a handful of guys who had pulled a combat tour and come home. I was supposed to have a lot more answers than I did. I also learned that they were always sending me off someplace to work on a problem. When I had to go someplace, they would phone over to Bolling Field and reserve an airplane to fly to wherever I was supposed to go. I never knew what kind of an airplane I was going to get. If it was an airplane I hadn’t flown before, the crew chief would show me where all the important handles were, and I’d be on my way. Among other places, I went to Alaska and Greenland, and I had an extended trip to England and got in a couple of B-17 missions with the Eighth Air Force. It was really kind of an odd sort of a job. Lee and I both knew that this was not the sort of place for us. We were together, and that was great, but I didn’t feel happy sitting at my desk while I had so many good friends overseas getting shot at. Lee understood, bless her heart. She realized that I couldn’t live with myself until I got back out again. Our life together was going to have to wait until the war was over. I got to work one morning, and my boss told me that I had been promoted and to go downstairs and buy myself some silver leaves because I was now a lieutenant colonel. Lee had never been with me for a promotion. I was a second lieutenant when we met, but I got my silver bars while she was away on the mainland on a business trip. I made captain in Hawaii after she had gone home, and major in the South Pacific. I could hardly wait to get off that bus and walk home and show Lee my new lieutenant colonel leaves. She didn’t even notice them. I finally asked her if she could see anything different about me. She looked me over and said that I looked about the same to her. ‘‘Didn’t you see these?’’ I asked, pointing to my shoulders. ‘‘Oh, that,’’ she said. ‘‘I just thought your gold major’s leaves needed to be polished.’’ I strongly suspected she was pulling my leg, but she never did admit it. She was a foxy little rascal. Blondie Saunders, who had commanded the 11th Group in the South Pacific as a colonel, was assigned to the Pentagon, too. He was now a brigadier general. He called me into his office one day and asked me if I would like to go back to war in the B-29. It was a new, big bomber that was still under development, and nobody knew much about it. I told General Saunders that I sure would. Blondie told me that he had just gotten word that he was in the B-29 program, and he could get me in. He said, ‘‘Eddie, grab an airplane and tour the United States and see how many of the old 11th Group you can find and how many of them would like to go back to war. You can’t tell them where they will be going or what they will be flying, but you can tell them that you and I will be in the outfit. If they decide to go, tell them they can expect orders to Marietta, Georgia, within two weeks.’’ I grabbed a B-26, made about a ten-day loop of the United States, and found about 50 of our old South Pacific...

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