The decorated former fighter pilot who pushed some of the military’s celebrated wartime aircraft to their limits – and speeds in excess of Mach 1 – celebrated his 104th birthday in February. His life moves more slowly these days. The jet black pencil mustache he sported as a younger man is silver now and thicker; the hair on top thinning out. The last time he flew a fighter plane was in 1968, the day before he retired after a 32-year career that spanned three continents and two wars.
As the saying goes, “There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.”
If boldness is measured not in blind moxie but devotion to duty and an intimate knowledge of one’s flying machine, Ollie’s legacy begs to differ.
“A fighter pilot, if he wants to live, should be able to fly an airplane in any direction you can think of. Up, down, left, right, spin. Otherwise you’re not going to survive in combat,” Ollie says. “Every fighter airplane I flew, I did everything in the book with it to learn its capabilities and its bad parts and good parts.”
The “most chronologically advanced” member of the Order of Daedalians, the century-old fraternal organization of American military pilots, attributes his longevity in part to a healthy diet, exercise and regular, moderate doses of red wine.
Ollie is Italian, after all.
“Nobody has ever seen me drunk,” he says, from the kitchen table of the house he and his late wife,
Article source: http://gazette.com/colorado-springs-veteran-has-seen-two-wars-104-years/article/1600629