Mr. Robert McClintock
• Born on November 12, 1918
• Wife: Elizabeth "Betty" Roane; died on September 18, 2008
• Married for 66 years
Bob's Story
(First ten pages – rough draft)
Chapter 4
Centenarian
Robert Earl McClintock, 106
b. November 12, 1918
"At ten thousand feet, you're ten seconds from dirt. OK.
Now, the dive brake slowed us down to seventy miles an hour."
PART 1
November 8, 2018
It's Military Appreciation Night in Amalie Arena as the Tampa Bay Lightning Bolts[1] hosts the New York Islanders.
Here’s stadium announcer Paul Kennedy:
Tonight, for the performance of our National Anthem,[2] we're honored to be joined by a true hero, a World War II veteran who was drafted into the Army Air Corps in April 1941. Due to a lack of pilots, he became a commissioned pilot at twenty-six, flying modified P-51 Mustangs with the 86th Fighter-Bomber Group, with whom he flew eighty-six combat missions over Italy and North Africa. Thirty-three of those missions he flew in the “Tail End Charlie”[3] rear position. After the war, he attended Temple University and then joined the famous Westminster Choir, performing in Carnegie Hall and the Moron Tabernacle. Today, he resides here in Seminole. And in four days, this proud American will celebrate his 100th birthday. Tampa Bay, please welcome and salute First Lieutenant Robert McClintock. [Massive applause.]
The Beginning
Can we begin at the beginning?
Sounds like a fine place to me. Well, I was born in five states.
OK. Hold on. I hope you can explain that.
I was born in the state of ignorance, the state of poverty, the state of confusion, and then in the state of Michigan. When I was born in Michigan, my mother and father were in another state: anxiety.
Oh, that's great. That's good. Can I "borrow" that?
Sure. Now you can see what you're up against. I love words.
Me, too. Can you tell me a story? A true one.
I was born at three in the morning on November 12, 1918 – the same day as the end of WWI.
After I was born, I was circumcised. That hurt. Then, when I was about six weeks old, I was brought to church. It was an evangelical church. They believed in the Bible and Old Testament ways of doing things. And I was literally given to God as the first child. Yes. And it really didn't settle into me, the significance of it, until I was in the service. And in the service, you have time, not a lot, but often you have time for yourself for meditation, and so on.
###
I became a Christian when I was nine.
You understood at nine?
Yeah.
You just didn't get baptized; you got it.
That's right. This is how it happened. My father was an ordained Mennonite[4] minister, and we were taught to not steal. One time we were coming home from school, and Betty Bradley was walking ahead of us. Her Father and mother owned the general store. And she had a brand-new pencil that slipped out and fell in the snow. I picked it up and didn't give it back to her. And I thought, Is this stealing? Well, it doesn't belong to you, does it? It belongs to her. Yeah. Can you keep it and not say you're not stealing? There was a conviction of that stealing that convicted me that I needed to become a Christian.
Yeah, that was the trigger. When I was fourteen and a half in August 1932, we had a missionary who came to deputize and talk about the work and so on. And this missionary had a twist on it. He said, "I'm not going to talk to you about what I did, but these are the world's needs, and God is calling us to do the menial things. And you don't have to be a missionary to be a real Christian and follow God's will." And I thought to myself, Father, I think I need to give my life to you and let you direct it. And so that's what I did. I went forward; I committed my life to Him. When I was fourteen and a half.
First, you give your life, and then you make a commitment of your life to Christ.
Were you baptized by your father?
Yes. I was the first one he baptized.
My father and mother loved small congregations. They loved the country people. And yet he had churches in Flint [5], Pontiac [6], and Port Huron.[7] But after the Port Huron Church, he asked to go back to the smaller communities. And he served out his life doing that.
You know, teenagers think there are more important things than reading the Bible. But one day, I was reading the Bible, and Jesus, in Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, is talking about what the Gentiles do. They worry about what they're going to eat and what they're going to put on and so on. Then consider the birds of the field. They don't plow, they don't do anything like that, and God looks after them. And the lilies of the field blossom, and their blossom is more beautiful than Solomon, than all these roses.
And then Jesus said, Seek thee first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and everything else will be added to it.[8]
And I read that, and I said, Everything?
And a voice said, Yes, everything.
You mean everything?
He said Everything will be added unto you. Commit your way to me, and I'll add everything else. And that has been a foundation of my faith.
I knew I liked music, and in high school, I was taking geometry. The teacher, Mr. Otten, also directed the band and the school chorus; he taught mathematics as an vocation. And I thought, Gee, whiz, this is really keen. I can do this. I can do something like that. So that became my goal.
###
Birth Certificate
I finished high school in 1937 and wanted to be a cabin boy on one of those freighters up from Duluth down, and so on. They make good money, and you can't get off the ship to spend the money. I applied to be on one of the bulk carriers at Cleveland Cliffs,[9] a mining company. Send us your birth certificate and so on, so I sent my name and social down to Detroit. Well, no kid by that name was born on that date. It was sent to Lansing. No kid by that name. Turned out the doctor had never recorded my birth.
So now I'm nineteen, and Cleveland Cliffs is about sixty miles north of Detroit, so they called, got a long-distance operator, and said, Now, maybe you can help us with this. We have a problem. We want to get in touch with a doctor in Detroit. His name is so and so. Can you look him up and see if he's still alive?
Someone looked it up: Yes, there's a Dr. Robert Simpson at such and such an address.
"Well, would you call and see if he can talk to us? We'd like to talk to him." So, they got in touch with him and told him the problem, and he said, "Huh, I thought I did."
“Well, can we come down and visit you?”
Well, sure.
So, my parents drove down.
My father did not want an Earl, Jr., and so they said, "Well, what goes with that?"
And my mother said, "Well, Dr. Stimson's name is Robert, and Robert Earl sounds pretty good." Well, yeah. It does.
She said, "I'll ask him if we can use his name." Well, they go down, and they talk to him. It was wonderful. While they were there, he made out my birth certificate, postdated it nineteen years, and sent it to Lansing, Michigan. So, I was named after the doctor. Then I became a statistic. But I didn't get the job.
###
Government Job
In Michigan, that same year, they passed a law. The State wanted to sell some land. They had a delinquency problem. So, they needed four hundred people to make up the sale. The Democratic chairman of my county in Michigan had the option of sending somebody down to Lansing for a political job. When he didn't find any girls who wanted to do that, the Democratic chairman asked my parents, "Can I offer Bob this job?"
And they said, “Sure if you'd like.”
So, he claimed it for me. He said, “Now, it's only for five months, and you'll go down as a typist. They need typists.” I had studied to be a court stenographer. OK? They had these little machines. I even bought one. In high school, I took commercial business law, English, shorthand typing, the whole commercial thing. That was my major in high school.
So, I went down to Lansing alone, two hundred and fifty miles away. And I applied for a typist position.
“Oh, we don't hire male typists,” the boss said.
But I've come two hundred and fifty miles.
He said, “Well, I didn't say we don't need you. You can be a proofreader.” So, I was a proofreader. We would go through the books and proofread them.
I had written back to the Democratic chairman. And I said, I like this job. I'd like to keep it. Can I do anything?
And, when it was all over, they dismissed 384 of them. Out of four hundred, I was one of only sixteen they kept.
I worked as an assistant to the director of the posting department. This is in the Capital Building, the auditor general's department. We kept track of taxes, the land taxes, all the taxes. I knew the system well. Anyway, he got himself in a sex jam, and they fired him. And so, the auditor general said to me, “Now, Mr. McClintock, you're going to oversee this department until we can find another director.”
Well, there I am. I'm twenty-one. And some of these people have been working there for fifteen or twenty years at the same job. They knew more about their jobs than I did. And to put a new kid on the block in charge like that didn't go so well.
Something told me, You're in a spot, McClintock.
Well, I worked in the department for two years, and I knew there was no future in it, in posting, and I needed an education. So, the next day, I got all the employees' attention. I said, “I don't know what you're doing. I can't do that. I'm just holding the fort, and I need your help so we can have the thing running as smoothly as possible.” Suddenly, I was accepted because I wasn't going to lord it over them.
That's when I decided I'd go to college. And I picked Taylor University.[10] When I got there as a freshman, I was a young adult, not just a freshman. And there was this girl who was a junior; she played the piano for the men's chorus. The room is laid out like here's the door, the piano, and the director. And the men sat around like this, and all the first tenors were over here. I could see her and flirt with her, which I did.
That's how I met Betty.
I was in the class of Forty-three at Taylor. Betty was a little earlier.
I was going to be a schoolteacher, but I was drafted in my sophomore year.
###
Military
During World War I,[11] the National Guards of Wisconsin and Michigan combined to make the 32nd Division. And they did a fantastic job. Well, when it looked like we were going to be in WWII[12] somewhere, they reactivated the 32nd Division. So, to flesh it out, they used draftees. And so, I was drafted into the Army in April 1941 at twenty-three. So, during the invasion at Pearl Harbor,[13] we had begun our thirteen weeks of training. We'd been on maneuvers. And we were Army.
Yeah. Well, I was adopted into the National Guard. It was actually the Army then, in the Thirties. We trained in the Alexandria, Louisiana, area. Then, after Pearl Harbor, they moved us to Fort Devens,[14] just outside of Boston, which was a staging ground for deployment. After Pearl Harbor, the Army Air Force knew they needed more men qualified to train as pilots, navigators, and bombardiers.
And so, the military devised a one hundred fifty-question comprehensive screening for potential pilots. It was open to all enlistees, officers, and single males between eighteen and thirty-three.
The questions were general, like, What month is it? Who's the president? How many states are in the Union? Some questions were complicated, but if you got ninety out of the one hundred fifty questions right, you qualified to take the physical. That was all it was, just screening. The day I took the physical, they examined two hundred men. I mean, this was a large program. Now, out of the two hundred men, they selected fifty-six. They screened it that closely.
I passed.
They wanted as many people as possible to register. And so, if you were on guard duty, you'd say, Oh, that's the day I'm supposed to take my exam. Others worked the system. I did not. I've been a Christian all my life. And, when it came to bayonet practice, that just turned my stomach. And so, there's a verse by Paul (the Apostle): "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."[15]
Well, the company bulletin board was something that everybody read every day. That was the communication center for the company. And, up in the corner was a little three-and-a-half by five-inch card: "Wanted: Permanent K.P."
And so, I thought, hmm. I'll take that. It'll get me out of the field.
Well, now, I didn't smoke, and I didn't drink. I, a happy creature, did what I was told. And, by then, it's summer in Louisiana, in the swamps, with mosquitoes and snakes and thirty- and forty-pound packs on your back. And, if it rained, well, I found that peeling potatoes and taking care of dirty pots and pans was outright friendly.
###
Kitchen Duty
There were two cooks on and two off, twenty-four hours a day. The group I was assigned to report to the kitchen at two o'clock in the afternoon, and we would prepare supper and breakfast and then the main meal for the next day. We fed two hundred thirty men three meals a day.
And then we were off, and the other group came in.
Anyway, one day, my Mess Sergeant said, "Oh, my gosh. I'm short a cook."
Then he said, "McClintock, come over here."
“Yeah, Sarge, what can I do for you?”
"You wanna be a cook?"
I said, “Well, Sarge, I've been in the kitchen here for a couple of weeks, and I like to work.”
“I've seen what you do. I think, probably, with a little bit on the job.”
Bob never finished the sentence.
“Go get your whites,” his Sergeant said.
OK.
So, I became a cook in training. Eventually, I attended culinary school and became a real cook and a baker. That's where I was when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. I was in the kitchen peeling potatoes.
Am I boring you, young man? Am I boring you?
No, Sir. Not at all. Exactly the opposite.
Becoming a pilot
I was a Private First Class when Pearl Harbor was bombed. So, I was one of fifty-six, and that night, at five, we were herded into a small auditorium. And we were sworn into the U.S. Army Air Corps, Cadets unassigned. We were, What do we do now?
They said, "We're going to give you a thirty-day furlough. You go home and stay there so we'll know where to find you. It's an extended thing until we call you because the schools are not ready yet."
I was home for four months, and then they called. Well, we had eight hundred Cadets at Kelly Field[16] who had to be trained as officers. So, we had classes in meteorology. We had classes in identifying silhouettes of planes and ships, and so on of the enemy, the Germans and Japanese, and learning this and that. We were then screened for pilot, navigator, and bombardier assignments. I was going to be one of those.
Yeah. Well, I turned out to be a pilot.
__________________________
Footnotes
[1] The Tampa Bay Lightning, or the Bolts, is a successful National Hockey League team founded in 1992. They have won three Stanley Cups and are known for their high-powered offense, talented roster, and dedicated fan base. The team plays at Amalie Arena in downtown Tampa, with a seating capacity of around nineteen thousand spectators.
[2] Bob sang a duet of the National Anthem with Retired U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Sonya Bryson, a frequent anthem singer at Lightning games. The Military Appreciation Nights honor military veterans. Bob and Technical Sergeant Bryson were placed directly in the center of the ice and given a mic. The Lightning won the match with a 4-2 score over the New York Islanders.
[3] During the midst of World War II, "Tail End Charlie" was a phrase used to describe the final crew member in a bomber squadron. This individual, typically positioned in the rear gunner's seat, had one of the riskiest roles on the team as they were constantly under threat from enemy aircraft and anti-aircraft fire.
[4] Mennonites, a devout Christian sect, are recognized for their devotion to peace, communal living, and modesty. They place a strong emphasis on nonviolent ways of life, serving others selflessly, and distancing themselves from the secular world. However, Mennonite customs and convictions may vary greatly among different communities within the faith.
[5] Flint, Michigan, sits on the banks of the Flint River, just sixty-six miles northwest of Detroit. It is considered the main hub in Mid-Michigan and has a population of some 82,000, ranking as the twelfth most populous city in all of Michigan.
[6] Pontiac is twenty-six miles northwest of Detroit. It is often referred to as a satellite or suburban city within the greater Detroit area.
[7] The Port Huron Area is the Nautical Hub of the Great Lakes. It is situated at the start of the St. Clair River as it meets Lake Huron's southern banks. It’s located on the border between Canada and the U.S.
[8] Matthew 6:33
[9] Cleveland-Cliffs has been mining iron ore in Michigan for over one hundred seventy years, specializing in beneficiation, pelletizing, and steelmaking. As North America's largest flat-rolled steel producer, the company has also led the Great Lakes maritime industry for over a century with fourteen bulk carriers.
[10] Taylor University, a private Christian university in Upland, Indiana (seventy-seven miles north of Indianapolis), was founded in 1846 and prioritized integrating faith and academics. It has various undergraduate programs and a student population of around two thousand, with an 11:1 student-to-faculty ratio. The university values student life and community through organizations and activities like athletics, music, drama, and service projects. With fifty-four percent female students and forty-six percent male students, Bob had a good chance of meeting his future wife, Betty.
[11] World War I, also known as "The Great War," lasted from 1914 to 1918. It involved the major powers of the time, including the Allied Powers (France, Russia, and the U.K.) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire). The war was characterized by trench warfare, chemical weapons, and large-scale battles. It resulted in the collapse of empires and the emergence of new nations. The Treaty of Versailles ended the war in 1919 with harsh penalties for Germany. There were over nine million combat fatalities and five million civilian deaths from occupation, bombardment, starvation, and illness.
[12] WWII was a global conflict from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations in two opposing alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It resulted in enormous casualties and significant societal, political, and economic changes, including the formation of the United Nations and the emergence of superpowers like the U.S. and Soviet Union. The war ended with the dropping of atomic bombs by the U.S. on August 15, 1945.
[13] On December 7, 1941, just before eight a.m., the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It lasted two hours and killed over twenty-four hundred Americans, leading to the U.S. joining World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously called it "a date which will live in infamy.”
[14] Fort Devens is a former U.S. Army military installation in Ayer and Shirley, Massachusetts. The fort was established in 1917 as a training and mobilization center during WWI and WWII. Fort Devens played a crucial role in training soldiers and supporting personnel for the war effort during WWII. After the war, the fort continued to serve as a training center for the Army Reserve and National Guard and a site for various other military operations.
[15] Philippians 2:12 says, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” (NIV)
[16] Kelly Field is a former U.S. Army Air Corps (later the U.S. Army Air Forces) airfield in San Antonio, Texas. Kelly Field was one of thirty-two Air Service training camps established after the U.S. entered WWI. It was used as a flying field, primary flying school, school for adjutants, supply officers and engineers, mechanics school, and aviation general supply depot. During WWII, the Advanced Flying School at Kelly graduated almost seven thousand men between 1939 and 1943.
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