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"HIgh Flight
The Sequal"

All Naval Aviators have read the poem, "High Flight".  Brother Tarsier Ken "Hogie" Hogendobler was privilidged to receive one of the greatest Father's Day presents a dad could ever receive.  Hogie's son wrote him a poem, a sequal to "High Flight."  As our friends, Billy and Lumpy, need our prayers, it is appropriate to read this poem in their honor.

For years they attempted to don wings and fly
A perpetual pursuit to conquer the sky
To see His creations as He sees them below
To be one with nature and the science of flow

To fly, for the freedom of one and one's rights
Experiencing two at one time, fight and flight
"to the future," you'd say, "the betterment of all men"
Still, above all the rest, you alone return with the wind

To give of yourself, with heartfelt energy and yearn
To pass on your wings so that others may learn
Of the excitement, the danger of the death of the dove
Of each landing on the carrier of life
Of those memories and that love

Fortunate are those who feel of silver linings
Hear only wind and see cloud-tops shining
Witness to all the blessed things first-hand
The powerful feeling one must have ascending land

To have winged air, touching Heaven through and through
To have been the only thing between seas and skies of blue
To have soared with death, towing it around
To have wondered if your last prayer would be to walk on solid ground

"Thank You for giving me another day today
My family,  my friends, it is to them that I can say:
I have seen what You see,  I have seen what You can do,
and I'll live a more content tomorrow just knowing I have moved

-Like the wind and the clouds-
that much closer, Lord, to you.

J. Matthew Hogendobler, DMD

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