By Jim Bailey
Anchor / Managing Editor / WJHL
Published: November 3, 2009

I grew up in a small South Carolina town, when TV news was in its infancy, but watching those flickering black and white images left me with a sense that there was a world of adventure out there.  Covering news became a way to tap into the human adventure, rather than just watching it go by. 

Monday as I drove to Lexington North Carolina to catch a flight to the Tri with the Wings of Freedom, I swapped stories with Bristol Herald Courier reporter Tom Netherland.  We talked a lot about the places we’d been, the people and events we’d covered.  For both of us there were some “wow, wish I’d done that” moments.

Then we shared one we’ll no doubt both talk about with other reporters some day.  Tom climbed aboard a B17 bomber, while I hitched a ride on the only remaining B24 bomber still in flight.

On a brilliant fall day we soared for more than an hour over the colorful fall foliage of the North Carolina and Tennessee mountains. Along the way, I climbed through “Witchcraft” from stem to stern.  Inching along on my belly to peer through the bombardiers’ site in the glass wrapped nose, crawling through the bomb bay, past the ball turret and finally squeezing into the aft gun turret.

It was a spectacular view, but that was the least of it. It was impossible to spend that time aloft and not realize the sacrifice it took for young skinny airmen to crawl through those passages and into those turrets.  Flying into combat where half of them would never come back.  It was the view of history that was the most impressive event of the trip.

I’ve let it soak in for a day, but thinking about the trip brought into clarity that it isn’t swapping stories with my peers that make the voyage memorable, it’s sharing it with everyone who will listen, or watch. 

It’s taken me from the wilds of Alaska to the French Quarter, from war torn Bosnia to Capitol Hill, from Cape Canaveral to, well, the Tri-Cities Regional Airport. Monday was among the best of the memories.  Sometimes I really love my job.