He leaned back, resuming his horrific posture, but kept gesturing as he spoke.
"We lived in Iowa, out in the farmland, way out - the nearest town was 15 miles away and had a population of less than 500. Father's business was fixing tractors and trucks, but mostly tractors. I grew up helping him. I could fix a tractor, by myself, by the time I hit five years of age. I love it, too, the getting dirty, the figuring out the problem, the putting the puzzle pieces back together. During high school, I decided that I wanted to branch out, and work on planes. Army was a way to do that. Joined right out of school. It wasn't that I didn't want to fly, I just wanted to play with the engines more." He laughed a little. "Way more."
"I became a pilot when, one day, I couldn't find a pilot to run start-up on an engine I'd repaired, so I climbed into the cockpit to do it myself. Caught the eye of visiting general, and well... Started flight training the next day."