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Fly on, Fly high, Fly long, Silent Warrior
I first met Bill in Athens in the early '70s. He was a Russian linguist and an AMS, but I don't remember him for that. I remember him most as a good Christian man. At a time and in a place where professing believers were rare, Bill stood out and stood up for his Christ and Savior. After Athens, Bill went one way and I went another, both still participants in this thing of ours, a couple of Silent Warriors operating in the shadowy world of a silent war. We both retired from the Air Force and moved on to other things, sporadically keeping in touch with each other. We were both members of the Prop Wash Gang, a group originated by another friend of Bill's and populated by seven or eight hundred former airborne reconnaissance fliers spread across the world and the generations. Bill settled down in Wichita Falls, Texas, and I retired to my boyhood home in Anadarko, Oklahoma - about 90 miles north of Bill. I called him a few years back and we met for lunch in Lawton, about halfway for each of us. We reminisced about old times and old friends, and all too soon, we went our separate ways. I continued to get emails from Bill quite often.
Bill passed away peacefully on March 23rd, sitting in his recliner, apparently from natural causes. We don't know or understand why, but God had a reason for calling Bill home. On Friday, family and friends and seven or eight hundred Prop Wash Gang members gathered for a celebration of life for William Loomus Burkhart. Actually, there were only two PWG members physically present, the Rev. William O. Pierson and the Rev. Lonnie R. Henderson, but the others were certainly there in spirit. The PWG doesn't know us as that, however. In the PWG, we are Rev. WOP and Rev. Chiefus, and that's they way I introduced us. I explained that our group is worse than the Mafia with nicknames, and even remarked that Bill at one time was known as "Barfin' Billy Burkhart." I didn't go into the details as to how he earned that nickname. Bill was very active in his church as was evidenced by the words spoken by his wife, Gwen, his pastor, and other friends and family members. His special calling was to the kids, and some of those "kids" were there, now grown up and parents themselves. What a testimony to a great Christian man!
Those in attendance knew Bill as husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, friend - but I provided a side to Bill that few of them knew about - a Silent Warrior in a Silent War. Taking a cue from another PWGer, I first named several geographical areas of the world - the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Sea of Japan, the Tonkin Gulf - and then asked those gathered to consider those areas and the countries adjacent to them. Those countries were the targets and Bill's job was to help contain them. Unseen, unknown, unrecognized, he did just that and did it well. Perhaps he was unseen, unknown and unrecognized by the outside world, but we certainly saw him, knew him and recognized him...
Bill was laid to rest in a private ceremony in the Fort Sill National Cemetery about fifteen miles north of Lawton, Oklahoma. To the west of this area are the Wichita Mountains, not big mountains as mountains go, but some of the oldest in North America. Mount Scott is the tallest and is visible for miles. As the family returned to Wichita Falls, had they looked west toward Mount Scott, they may have seen one lone eagle, slowly circling, riding the winds. That eagle looked a lot like
William Loomus Burkhart
Forever on watch, Forever on orbit