Happy 101st Birthday Lt. Col Douglas Hamilton

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I ran into him again yesterday at Zeke's where a bunch of shooting friends and I go every Thursday for breakfast.

 

I met Colonel Hamilton when some friends of his (and mine) asked me to drive the three of them to The Texas Road House for his 95 birthday.  He didn't drive any more and they didn't have a car at the time, just a pickup.

 

He had all of his mental capabilities, but his eyes were going.  We had a great time and the old guy drank everyone in the place under the table.  It was grand and glorious evening  Since then I have learned a lot more about him:

 

He is a direct descendent of Alexander Hamilton.

 

His father was a Brigadier General and a friend of George Smith Patton, Jr (one of my very few heroes) and they lived next door to Patton at one time.

 

His father also hand wrote the articles of surrender at the end of WWII, but they were typed for the final signing.  Not a word was changed.

 

He flew a C-50 (an up graded C-47?) full of Pathfinders behind German lines the day before the Normandy landing.

 

He flew again the next day and told me that the man hanging from the church steeple in the movie Patton was really there.

 

He later flew bombers in WWII and in Korea.

 

He was one of the first people to go on the honor flight to D.C.

 

When we took him home after his 95th birthday he got out of my car, leaned back in and said "Taylor, I saw a lot of action when I was still flying  and a lot of things afterward, too, but I've never been as scared as was with your driving."  He winked and laughed and walked inside his house.

 

I've seen him quite often since and we always speak.  A couple of years ago I asked if he remembered me and he asked if had ever learned how to drive. 

 

He eats at Zeke's Eatin' Place in Frontier Village shopping center over in Prescott  quire often, and most people there don't even notice him, don't have a clue who he is or what he's done.

 

Someone told me that they asked him on his 100th birthday what he was looking forward to next.  He told him that he was planing his next five birthday parties.

 

I'd like to be there for all five of them and any that he has beyond that.