James E. Brown emerged from serving as a pilot in World War II to enjoy a long and successful career as a teacher in secondary schools and in higher education. While Jim did not seek to talk about his war days to just anyone, he did feel compelled to chronicle his experiences in training and in combat, building upon the entries he dutifully scribed in the journal his mother gave him. The result is a collection of stories that describe his matriculation from a 19-year-old college freshman into a wiser young man coming to grips with the harshness of war. After marrying the love of his life, Jean Helbig, in 1946, Jim settled into a teaching career that began with a brief stint in Junction City, Kansas, followed by more than 30 years as a high school English teacher and another eight at the junior college level in suburban Kansas City, Kansas. As with anything Jim did, he performed it well, being named Teacher of the Year in the state of Kansas in 1976. As Jim mentions in his dedication for this book, it was perhaps because of the dozens of students who asked their mentor to relate “just one more war story” that the collection remained alive enough in his memory to be transferred to the written page. Jim and Jean raised a loving family of four children and spent most of their lives living in Lenexa and Overland Park, Kansas. The couple celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1996. Jean passed away three years later. Jim died in 2011 at the age of 87. Never a boastful person, Jim was nevertheless proud of his military service and of his skills as a pilot, as his writing suggests. The stories surrounding his 85 missions are a tribute to Jim and the thousands of young men like him who fought fiercely to protect the freedoms in which they believed. |
