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Stanley R. “Stan” Luther, grew up in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Idaho during the era of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. He joined the US Navy during World War II and later joined the Air Force to become a pilot. During his 28 years in the Air Force, he flew everything from bombers and transport aircraft to fighter jets and reconnaissance planes in Vietnam. In 1969, he was awarded the Bronze Star.
With over 13,000 hours of flight time, Stanley R. Luther knows his way around an airplane. After serving as an attaché to Madagascar, Stan retired to the Pacific Northwest where he worked as a community college professor, flight instructor, and air ambulance pilot. He lives in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon where he enjoys a view of the local airport.
Working with Daniel Alrick and Julie Kanta of Plumb Creative, Lt. Colonel Luther has, at 96, penned A Lifetime in the Atmosphere is a memoir that takes readers on an extraordinary journey.
Ed Battistella: Thanks for your service and congratulations on A Lifetime in the Atmosphere. When did you decide to put together a memoir of your life and career?
Stan Luther: Years ago. It was mostly about my career. I wanted to make sure I got the Cuban Missile Crisis in there, it was the driving force. I didn’t have a serious plan, I thought someday I’ll write a book. Once that (the CMC) happened, I figured hey, I gotta tell this story. It had a life of its own.
My late wife Nellie had a lot of interest in family history and saved a lot of photos and papers. I had given speeches and talked to the news media about my time in the service and experience flying, but my own interest in writing a book was approximately 10 years ago, when Nellie was progressing into Alzheimer’s and I had time to start curating those records.
Ed Battistella: This month is the anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and you were a Lieutenant Colonel and one of the B-47 jet pilots on alert at the time after President Kennedy announced that the Soviets were deploying ballistic missiles in Cuba. Tell us about that experience?
Stan Luther: Well, being on alert in a B47 made it pretty close to the skin when we were called into a room to watch President Kennedy on TV. Nobody spoke. We all looked at the TV and you could hear a pin drop. We just looked at each other afterwards and just silently thought this might be it. For eight years, our mission had been to train for bombing runs with nuclear weapons, preparing for the unthinkable possibility of war with the Soviet Union. I directed a team of five aircraft to the municipal airport in Columbus, Ohio. The urgency of the situation meant that we were airborne before anyone at the Columbus airport was informed of our impending arrival or the reason behind it. Each of our aircraft carried a menacing payload of thermonuclear bombs, each packing 20 megatons of firepower, ominously nicknamed “Big Ugly.” These weapons were nothing short of monstrous, barely fitting into the bomb bay. The increase of nuclear readiness to DEFCON 2 on October 24th raised the tension and anxiety considerably. B-47s remained grounded to conserve fuel while B-52s patrolled the skies around the clock, carrying thousands of nuclear weapons. For about three days, we remained on alert until tensions finally deescalated as the USSR agreed to begin removing its missiles from Cuba on October 27.
Ed Battistella: For a farm kid from Kansas and Idaho, what was the attraction of flying? How did you get interested in aviation?
Stan Luther: I was a farm boy during the Great Depression when conditions were arid during the Dust Bowl and almost impossible for a farmer to make a living. That didn’t make farming seem appealing. More importantly, I did not want to stay at home working for my father. Interest in flight came immediately, just in my blood, as soon as I saw a plane fly overhead in the plains I knew I wanted to get inside one of them. This unyielding passion led me to incessantly pester my father until he relented and took me to the airport. He told a flight instructor that the only way to get me to be quiet about flying was to take me up for a lesson. As soon as we were in the air, it felt right. Amidst the whir of engines, the rushing wind, and the exhilaration of flight, I discovered an affection for aviation that resonated deeply within me.
Ed Battistella: You visited Vietnam in 2015, many years after the war you served in. What was that experience like?
Stan Luther: It was a trip back through time. Revisiting the old bases brought back a lot of memories, and crossing into the North Vietnam I was able to have civil conversations with Vietnam guerrillas who were my enemies during the war. The kinds of guys I was directing F4s to bomb into submission. They were fascinated and wanted to know the details. It tells you something about war. When I was on combat missions, I was focused on the objective, but I would think later and especially over the years about those guys down below my plane and what I would have thought and done if I was in their shoes, so it was a good conversation for me too. What used to be South Vietnam exuded prosperity, vibrancy, and warmth, while, even after all these years, the North maintained a lower standard of living, and the demeanor of its people—especially in Hanoi—appeared more somber. People on the street wanted to discuss the war, asking about my role, the aircraft I flew, our assignments, and whether we had faced enemy fire. It seemed as if they couldn’t get enough of my stories.
Ed Battistella: For several years you were a military attaché in Madagascar. What did that entail?
Stan Luther: My attaché training encompassed a wide array of skills and knowledge, from report compilation to the application of various technologies. I learned to operate effectively in a diplomatic environment, navigating the bureaucratic intricacies of the Department of Defense’s military assistance programs. The job encompassed a wide range of responsibilities, from drafting reports on military and political developments within the country to providing crucial support to the U.S. Ambassador and other embassy staff. We attended numerous diplomatic functions, further strengthening our ties, and played a pivotal role in coordinating U.S. military assistance to Madagascar. Additionally, we had the privilege of piloting our designated C-47 passenger aircraft, affectionately known as the “Gooney Bird,” which allowed us to conduct official business across the country and support the embassy’s transportation requirements. It was a great assignment, and the Malagasy people were wonderful.
Ed Battistella: A question for Julie. I’m tremendously impressed with the quality of the book, the design and the quality of the many photographs. Can you say something about Plumb Creative and the work you do?
Julie Kanta: Thank you! I started out in graphic design in 2006, founding Plumb Creative in 2009 doing branding and websites. But when I was a kid, I would make my own newsletters for family members, so I’ve really always loved both writing and design. When I graduated from SOU in 2014, my capstone was a “Living Legacy” project: combining written memoir with photographs. Eventually that became a beautiful book for my mother. I love combining the written word with visual design, bringing stories to life and preserving people’s memories. I think my experience in branding has really helped me with making projects as beautiful as they can be on top of a good story. My perfectionism helps with the editing process as well, ha ha. So I also have the ability to see the project as a whole, ensuring each piece is going to capture the spirit of the story. I care about quality, both as a final physical product and that my client’s voice has come through. I believe that everyone’s story is worth preserving, and I’m proud to be a part of it.
Ed Battistella: I also have a question for Daniel. What was the experience like of working with Stan? What impressed you most?
Daniel Alrick: I’d like the reader to imagine how much of the book was composed from Stan and I on our hands and knees on his living room floor going over notes and archival material. Some of it was formal sitting side by side at his iMac typing, usually me composing a passage and he giving notes, sometimes the opposite. But usually it was recorded wide ranging meandering conversations that were transcribed and made literary, or Stan’s firsthand notes that were stashed away, or his tape and video recordings, or fresh handwritten yellow pad pages that Stan would write and I’d rewrite and he’d review, and then we would rewrite again. And then in the final edit Julie helped make our tome of inserts more flowing.
What impressed me the most was Stan’s ability to contextualize. He had an idea that the Cuban Missile Crisis section of the book was the most important, and larger than him. And so from that I came up with the idea of structuring the book in flashback with the Cuban Missile Crisis at the beginning, illustrating the stakes his life as a cog in the wheel during nuclear war would rise to. But from that Stan then realized that there was more texture to gain from his lived experience as one of the dwindling members of the “Greatest Generation.” But not in a corny or sentimental way. On the contrary, Stan wanted to convey a generational lesson in all the complexities of that, as someone who is still learning at 96 years old.
What I hope we succeeded at is giving the texture of a life lived, along with Stan’s themes of duty, sacrifice, love, and pursuing one’s dreams. A lot of autobiographies simplify things, or they get bogged down in minutiae. I wanted to realize a collective dream between the three of us of what Stan’s life was like.
Ed Battistella: Thanks for talking with us.
