He truly is one of the greatest of the greatest generation"‹

If San Diego is a Navy town, then Yuba/Sutter is an Air Force town. It’s going to be some time until we stop talking about the passing of Gen. Chuck Yeager. I had the opportunity to sit and talk with Gen. Yeager, and it is an opportunity I will cherish for the rest of my life. It is not often that one gets to speak to a living legend, a person who already has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, had movies and books written about them, and whose life story is used to train people as a motivational program. 

I met him at Charlie Matthew’s house at some event Yuba Supervisor John Nicoletti invited me to. He really was a no-nonsense kind of guy. He certainly didn’t come across as a famous person - or come across as arrogant. After about three minutes I became aware that my questions were quite rudimentary, and he was kind enough to indulge me and tell me one or two stories about World War II. I asked if I could get a photograph with him, and he cheerfully agreed.

Gen. Yeager lived up the road toward Grass Valley in the foothills. Not long ago, the Yuba County Board of Supervisors named the back road into Beale Air Force Base after him. The road is the road he would use to go on base and shop at the PX.

It was a smart move to honor a world-famous local while he was still alive. We have seen a lot of base commanders pass through Beale AFB over the years, and all of them have been very aware that they have a neighbor who is a VIP, every one of them has waited with great anticipation for a visit with an American legend.  Let’s revisit just for a moment some of his more notable accomplishments: In 1944 Yeager became the first in his flight group to shoot down five enemies in a single mission. In that same year, he scored one of the first air war victories against the German Messerschmitt ME 262, a jet airplane. That accomplishment led to my favorite Chuck Yeager quote, “The first time I saw a jet airplane, I shot it down.”

In 1947 he became the first person to ever break the sound barrier by flying X1 at Mach 1.07.  After a North Korean pilot defected to South Korea, he became the first American to fly a MiG-15. In 1962 he was named Commandant of the United States Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School. In 1969 he was awarded his Star and promoted to Brig. General. When he was 63 years old, he drove the pace car for the 70th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500. He truly is one of the greatest of the greatest generation. He lived in a time when people were much less concerned about what’s on the outside and very much worried about the ability to perform the task at hand.

Many times when asked about his incredible and historic achievements, he would simply say, “it was the mission I had to perform, so I did it.” So many of the things we enjoy - in the prosperous and free state we live in come from the ingenuity, hard work, loyalty, dedication, and toughness of these people who are now dying in their 90s.

Reading over the many books that have been written about him and his compatriots like California Senator Pete Knight, gives us insight into a time when bureaucracies were much smaller, and those who could muster the toughness to do incredible things rose to the top. He will be missed. We should do what we can to remember the man, his principles, the organization he helped build -The U.S. Air Force, and the importance of accomplishment and achievement.