The first speaker in the Team Tinker Home Away from Home 2019 Meet the Hero Night series on April 17 at the Midwest City Chamber of Commerce was retired U.S. Navy pilot and former commodore of Strategic Communications Wing ONE at Tinker Air Force Base, Capt. John Keilty.
To begin his speech, Keilty wanted to explain what it means to be a real hero, but he needed some audience participation.
He invited all of the young Airmen and Sailors from the audience, along with Home Away from Home founder Pam Kloiber, to join him in the front for a toast where he talked about what it means to be a hero — the heroes fighting on the battlefield and the Americans who work selflessly to help others.
“Today we first recognize real heroes, first you the American warfighter oh so tough, and then Ms. Pam Kloiber because she has a lot of right stuff,” Keilty said.
Keilty served as a pilot in the Navy for nearly 30 years and the subject of his talk for the evening was the indomitable, unbeatable American spirit; something he says is a fighting spirit and included the story of Lt. Col. Richard Cole, the last surviving Doolittle Raider.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II, there was an advertisement for pilots in the Army Air Corps, something Keilty says Cole eagerly signed up for. They sent him to a flight line in Florida filled with B-25s, another thing Cole was eager for. He and a group of 40 others were sent from Florida to San Francisco where they boarded an aircraft carrier — the USS Hornet, with 16 B-25s and set sail for Japan.
“They were on their way to the source of all that bad stuff that happened on Dec. 7,” Keilty said.
In the ready room of the carrier, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle explained that they’d be dropping bombs on Tokyo and that since their planes would be so heavy, they wouldn’t have enough fuel to return to the carrier and would instead have to ditch and make it to China or the Soviet Union. Although some crash landed and made it to China, many of them were captured as prisoners of war and executed.
“As they sat in that ready room, they all knew that was a real possibility, and yet they did it,” Keilty said. “As a result of them doing what they did, they ignited the American spirit back here. Our morale went sky high. It was like the flag raising of Iwo Jima, what it did to this country to energize us. That’s what Jimmy Doolittle’s Raiders really did for America.”
The Battle of Midway followed and Keilty said America started to win the war, all because of that fighting spirit.
“You kids that are in the Air Force in here, I know that all the senior leaders in here from the Air Force and those veterans in here that have served would trade shoes with you in a heartbeat because what you kids are doing for this country is continuing the legacy of that indomitable, unbeatable, American fighting spirit,” Keilty said. “It’s a great thing and I’m so proud and so honored to stand in front of all of you that raised your right hand.”
Keilty went on to discuss some of his time in the Navy, specifically a time at the end of the Cold War that he described as incredible when, in an attempt for comradery, seven test pilots were sent from America to Moscow to meet with their pilots and test fly their planes. Russia was in a deep depression at the time and there was a stark contrast between the two countries.
After the American test pilots visited Moscow, some of the Russian cosmonauts visited Patuxent Naval Air Station to test fly America’s planes. One cosmonaut by the name of Igor Volt was interviewed by a reporter with CNN after the test flight, and was asked what life was like before and after the Soviet Union.
“Before, I fly two times a day. Before, I live in house on hill. Before, my kids go to good school. Before, I have dacha in country. Now, I don’t live in house on hill, my kids don’t go to good school, I fly two times a month…but now, I have freedom,” Keilty recalled Volt saying.
This is something that has stuck with Keilty in the years since.
“Can you imagine? He now was experiencing freedom that everybody in this room takes for granted. He had experienced that and he didn’t want to lose that,” Keilty said. “That points to this country is so many ways when somebody makes a statement about freedom. We in this country will never ever, as long as we have the unbeatable indomitable American fighting spirit, will never lose the way of life we enjoy.”