Ken and Pete were best friends from the time they went through flight school together, served the next year at El Toro together, left to fly together in the Korean War and bonded as brothers.  They shared everything and the only argument they ever had was an ongoing one.  Which of them was the greatest fighter pilot in the Marine Corps.  Both of them claimed that title.

When they left Korea, probably 1952, Pete went to Washington as an aide for some General, Ken went to Pensacola to qualify cadets on the carrier.  But they stayed close.  I have pictures of Ken walking down a street in Washington D.C where Pete was stationed.  I have a letter Pete wrote Ken saying he was coming to Pensacola. The two of them came from similar religious backgrounds.

Pete left Washington to go to the Blue Angels.  I just couldn't find the records.  Ken told me Pete rolled his plane into the ground practicing for a show in Corpus Christy.  But the official Blue Angels site only listed those killed in shows.  Scott found the records.  Pete died on March 24, 1955.  I'm sure Ken was devastated.  Ken was Pete's body escort to take him home to Oregon where his parents lived.   A couple of months later,  Ken flew to Pryor to to visit people who had been close to him growing up. My parents and his were close friends. Grief moves us back to familiar things. 

I didn't know until today that Pete died just five months before I met Ken.  Somewhere in that time frame, Ken began to think about marriage.  He was 26 years old.  Perhaps when Pete died, Ken was ready to settle down and find a wife.  I met him in September, thought nothing about it, because he was so much older.  But he thought on it, because the next March on my eighteenth birthday, he called my dad and asked if he could pursue that thought.  I knew nothing about his interest in me.  Dad said if you can catch her, go for it.

It took awhile, but he caught me.  I'm glad he did.