This week I was deeply saddened to hear of an aircraft accident that claimed the lives of four Florida Institute of Technology students. The students were on a training mission when the Piper Seminole went down. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the students.

Glenn

How I Look At Memorial Day

When I was five years old, my mother made the entire family dress up in our best clothes and loaded us in the family car. We crammed into our green Chrysler New Yorker for a ride. No one had mentioned the destination, but everyone was quiet, so I sat quietly with my two brothers and two sisters in the family car as we rode. It wasn’t a long ride and before long the car stopped at a graveyard in a small Pennsylvania town. My father parked the car on the road beside some of the gravesites and we all unloaded. My older sister Cynthia, nineteen years old at the time, was dressed in a black dress and sunglasses. I just followed the group and watched as my sister knelt to touch the grave marker. She started to cry and tears appeared on her cheeks from behind the sunglasses. I looked at my other family members because I wasn’t sure why my sister was upset and until this point in my young life, I had never seen her cry. While I was a little boy, I remember it hurt me immensely that my sister was upset and I didn’t know why.

After visiting the grave, we loaded quietly into the car and returned to my grandparent’s house. Later, I asked my mother who was buried in the grave we had visited and she quietly bent over and whispered, Scott. Scott was someone that had visited about six month prior and I remember he had taken time to play with me and seemed like a really nice person. Scott was also a soldier. My sister was engaged to him and several months earlier he’d been sent to Vietnam. According to my mother he had died in combat. Apparently, he’d been wounded and asked to stay behind and keep fighting with his fellow soldiers and died from his wounds.

 

About a year later, my grandfather passed away and that was the first time I had seen a full military funeral. Even as a child the sound of taps was difficult to hear. My grandfather had served in WWI and I still have his mess kit with his initials scratched onto it. My uncle flew bombers over Germany and I have his first set of wings that he’d given to my father for taking care of his family while he was away. These items are priceless to me. Luckily, these relatives made it through and seemed fine, but knowing they had been in harms way changed my view of war. It took away all the glamour of the old WWII movies and helped me understand the reality of war.

It could be a soldier in 1917 that heard the sound of a whistle that signaled him to climb from a trench into the face of enemy machine gun fire. Perhaps it was a sailor defending his floating home from a Japanese pilot or a Marine told to hold a position in Iraq. These people place themselves between the American people and the enemies that want to harm us.

So, when you go out and celebrate Memorial Day with your family, take a minute to reflect. Look around and understand that your way of life is not free, because at some point in time someone had to fight to defend it. Many people don’t support the wars we must fight and it’s their right to protest, but I hope they understand that someone died so they could have that right as well. Whatever your belief or whatever your political affiliation, each of us needs to look past that on Memorial Day. We need to realize the holiday is not about picnics or festivals, but it is the recognition of the sacrifices of our military heroes.

 

Memorial Day means many things to many people, but to me the meaning is simple; it is my sister standing over a grave looking down at the person she loved who had died for his country. Maybe it’s because I was so young but that event will always be with me and serve as my reminder of the meaning of Memorial Day.


Glenn P Clinger III
Author –Greenville, SC
www.glennpclingeriii.com

 

Should Colleges Offer Money Back Guarantees

 

I often wonder if colleges will begin to offer money back guarantees.

Think about this for a minute. You go to college to study nursing and invest your time and money on an education. You carefully picked out a school.  The brochure told you that earning a degree from their school would put you on the fast track for a great nursing career. So, you took out a student loan and set out to move your career in the right direction. Four years passed, and now you are in debt for, let’s say, fifty thousand dollars. You think to yourself, no problem, I will earn a great wage as a nurse and have good job security. You graduated in the top of your class and were excited about your future. You sent out resumes and went to job fairs, but no one was hiring nurses. You try your best and nothing happened. Years rolled by and you have been stuck in a variety of jobs, none of which require a degree. Finally, the job market picks up, but now your skills are too old and employers want new grads with the latest technology. Then reality hit you like a hammer…I am never going to work in my field. Should the college be entitled to give you your money back? Why not? All the promotional material from the school explained how their education would prepare you for your new career. You held up your end of the bargain by getting good grades and paying the tuition.

 

Students need to look at colleges closely when they sign up. Slick brochures can easily sway you to sign on, but look at career stats closely. This is a made up example, but there are plenty of fields in which students never work. Graduates that will never work in their chosen fields are everywhere. When looking at colleges, students need to look at hire rates and do so for the specific degree that they are getting. Someone is paying for that education and whether it is; you, your parents or Uncle Sam, you need to look at that school closely. There are no guarantees in life, but you were sold a product. You purchased a product and it failed to do what it promised, which is give you a career in nursing.  The day of the college degree that has a money back guarantee has not arrived, but mark my words someday it will become a reality.

 

My writing career has been influenced by several life-changing lessons. I worked several years for my father who was a successful businessman. That was great, but I soon grew bored. Then, my life changed, when I approached my parents about opening a business. Along with my brother Matt, I opened a gym in my hometown of Clarksburg, West Virginia. My father simply took charge and made it happen, teaching me along the way. His entrepreneurial spirit was intoxicating, and I have yet to meet a better businessman. The first life-changing lesson was realizing my father was right when he said, “You can do whatever you want, if you put your mind to it.”

When I was a small boy, my father would take me to the airport. I used to stand at the fence and wave to the pilots getting into the planes, and I desperately wanted to be on the other side of the fence flying those planes. I continued to work for my father and run the gym until another life-changing event happened; I took a flying lesson. After my first flight, I was at the airport all the time. Sitting on the bench outside the small local airport, I watched the planes depart. It was at that point, I decided to go to college to study aviation. Closing my gym and leaving my hometown, I enrolled at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida. During my first year at Florida Tech, I earned my pilot’s license and began working towards my commercial license. On one of my solo flights to Ocala, Florida, something happened that took me back to my childhood. As I walked from the Flight Service Station to my aircraft, I noticed a small boy standing by the fence with his father watching the planes leave. The little boy raised his small hand and waved to me and I returned the wave. It suddenly hit me; I had accomplished my goal and had made it to the other side of the fence. That was the second lesson; persistence is paramount. It had taken me years, but I had never lost the drive to fulfill my dream.

I ended up earning a BS degree in aviation management and an MS degree in logistics management from Florida Tech. So, armed with my new education, I wondered what I would do for a living. I had always toyed with writing and began working for my sister, Sylvia at her advertising firm in Honolulu briefly after graduation. The joy of creativity is something I share with my sister Cindy, so I decided to take it one step further. Writing press releases and advertisement campaigns, Sylvia gave me my first chance to write for a living, and for that, I am eternally grateful. My sister Sylvia had done a good bit of acting—mostly television bit roles—so I asked her to show me a script. After looking over the format, I began writing screenplays, and as I did, my writing improved each day. I eventually wrote several screenplays and would write any speculative script for which someone had an idea. In 1995, I wrote a children’s program that aired in Honolulu on an ABC affiliate. Again, I was able to work with my sister, this time for several months. Then, the years rolled by, and I fell into a normal job. It seemed the passion that I once had for writing was gone, as my screenplays failed to sell.

Then, I would learn another lesson. The lesson dealt with the impact one person can have on the life of another. Upon meeting my wife, Alicia it was amazing the difference her encouragement and support made in my life. My mother has always been my biggest fan to the point of giving me financial support when I was struggling. Support is critical, and besides family, I now have a wife that helps encourage me. When you look at family members, it is interesting how over time, the members can leave an imprint on each other’s lives. My brother, Bob, who is usually not much for talking on the phone, called me one night. At that time, I had all but given up on trying to sell anything and was thinking of throwing in the towel. Bob talked to me for three hours and asked me how I came up with screenplay ideas. When I told him that they just played in my head as they would on a screen, he paused and then replied, “then what are you doing working in the transportation industry?” It made me think, and caused me to turn my attention to writing a book instead of screenplays. With my love of aviation, it’s no surprise that my first book would be based on an aviation theme. The switch from screenplays to books was a struggle at first, but reading works by great authors helped me. John Grisham and Patricia Cornwell are two authors whose work I admire greatly, and while their styles are different, their writing helped me to understand great story telling.

 

 
Dear Readers,

I finally finished the sequel to, Flight 412. I had been working on it for the past two years and I like the way it ended up. This book is more character driven and will be more entertaining to the non-aviation readers. It is difficult to finally turn it over to the publisher, but it should be released in the next six weeks. I want to ask my loyal readers, that have been asking me for the past few months when the book would be done, to talk me up. I need all the hype I can get and please e-mail everyone in your address book regarding the book. I am giving away a free autographed copy to one lucky winner after the release and all you have to do is go to my website to register. I am grateful for all your support. When you buy one of my books it allows me to continue to do what I enjoy. The new book is titled: The National Conspiracy, when terror strikes America. Thanks for your time and have a great new year.

Glenn

To all my readers,


I want to wish all my readers, friends and family a very merry Christmas.


Glenn

Everyone seems to be concerned about the merger of Nortwest and Delta Airlines. I realize that
everyone's first concern will be the lack of free market forces that drive down prices for airline tickets.
Looking at the merger, it may in fact be a good thing. Looking at the Delta infrastructure, they are based in
Atlanta. Northwest, on the other hand, is based in Minneapolis. The new airline can look at routes and be able to
service the most profitable routes and drop the others. The shear size of the new airlines will give them greater control when they negotiate with vendors. This is one of the first mergers in a string of many to follow. Who knows maybe someday the US will have one national airline subsidized by the government.

When you think of American Airlines and the problems of the last few days, it is sad.
They problems they are facing are large and the way they have handled it has been nothing short of amazing.
In my novels, I write about aviation crash investigation. When anyone looks at the recent safety records of the airline industry in America your realize the outstanding job the industry is doing to combat maintenance issues.
American uses a great deal of the MD-80 aircraft. This plane has proven to be realible and safe.
People standing in lines are upset for the delays, but it beats the alternative of crashing. Thanks American for a job well done.

Glenn P Clinger III
Author " Flight 412"