Lou Ives
avmidn@aol.com
1109 Fox Ridge
Earlysville, VA 22936
(434)978-1255

 

October 11, 2012

AvCad Jim Mulligan, AvMidn Walter Schaefer & Robert Donovan:

Time forgot to record the history of the Great Generation Naval Aviators (1945-1975) and their participation in the Korea, Nam, and the Cold Wars.

I have yet to find an extant collection of their stories, so we’ll do it ourselves. It needs to be done. I’ve called it “The Brown Shoes History” project.

While sorting and organizing the many boxes and files of the project, I ran across Jim Mulligan’s 1998 letter with your addresses and a brief comment. A quick “SwitchBoard” of your addresses, and all were still o.k., so here’s a bit of the history.

A copy is attached for your nostalgia, and to prove to your grandkids that all your stories are obviously true.

I’d like to include your histories and photos in the Project’s 450+ stories in 5 gigabites of stories and background information in the 63 files.

For the past 50 years, and especially the past dozen, beginning with Flying Midshipman from the 1946-1950 era, we have been assembling a historical collection of the stories of those Naval Aviators the historians forgot--those designated between 1945-1950—Korea, Nam, and the Cold War--with stories and photos from childhood, flight training, Navy career, and retirement. We are currently operating under the §503(c)(3) aegis of the University of Virginia—all donations are tax-exempt.

A few years ago, twenty-seven hardcopy binders of the history were been donated to the Navy Museum in Pensacola, Florida. Later a website, http://thebrownshoes.org. was established. It needs a lot of work. Check it out and send along your stories and comments.

We are also collecting books authored by these great guys—a dozen so far, including Jim’s; and several videos—edited and unedited; which we will donate to the eventual repository of this Project.

We have set a three-year window to accomplish our next objective:

OBJECTIVE: To locate a permanent §501(c)(3) home (host) for The Brown Shoes Project—a compilation of primary source historical stories, narratives, documents, photos, background material dedicated to those United States Naval Aviators who served during the Korean, Viet Nam, and Cold Wars during the 1945-1975 generation — and their squadron mates, instructors, white hats, who supported them. This will foster awareness of this era and enable historians, educators, students, and family to access this information from a single source.

This note with a couple of enclosures has been sent to Jim Mulligan.

/signed/ Lou Ives

 

Jim: another Flying Midshipman shafting to add to yours: For some reason, file numbers were started with the senior class (9-46) at Ottumwa when the AvMidn program started on December 16, 1946. Those AvCads who had completed preflight and were in the flying phases of the training program were assigned higher numbers. I was in the senior class (9-46) at Ottumwa when the balloon went up, so my number, 496290, lower than Glenn Faucett’s 496956 (his preflight was St. Mary’s). When we were in VA-134 at SAN and JAX, although he received his wings a year before I did, the ignorant squadron troops ranked me senior to him, much to his disgust—(Haw, Haw!).