Decorated fighter pilot remains faithful to duties
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah — As the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds took flight for their show here on Saturday, June 12, Bernard Fisher, watching from the fence of the VIP area, became openly emotional. Moments before, on the base tarmac, the retired Air Force colonel, with the Congressional Medal of Honor hanging around his neck, had been part of the honorary team that inspected the Thunderbird pilots prior to their flight.
Asked if he would like to sit down to watch the Thunderbirds perform their precision aerial maneuvers, the 77-year-old member of the Kuna 5th Ward, Kuna Idaho Stake, declined. Dressed in a white sports shirt, dark blazer and slacks, he stood at the fence throughout the approximately 30-minute show.
Brother Fisher was raised in the Church in Clearfield, Utah, near Hill Air Force Base. He first joined the military toward the end of World War II, but left the service when the war ended. A short time later, he made the military his career as he joined the Air Force to train as a fighter pilot.
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson presented Brother Fisher with the Congressional Medal of Honor. The Air Force had created the award for its branch in 1965, and Brother Fisher was the first member of the Air Force to receive it.
The honor was a result of a mission he flew in Vietnam a year earlier. He and other pilots were providing air support for ground troops when a fellow pilot was shot down and crash landed. Brother Fisher landed his single-propeller A1-E plane on a short, damaged runway under heavy enemy fire and rescued the pilot. The episode is chronicled in his autobiography, Beyond the Call of Duty.
Brother Fisher's reputation is well known among Air Force personnel, and many of them greeted him and had their photos taken with him while he was at the air show.
Brother Fisher, who now suffers from Parkinson's disease, spoke softly, unassuming despite his notoriety. To the Church News, he readily spoke of his Church experience in Vietnam rather than about the rescue mission. He recalled efforts to build a meetinghouse where the military group could conduct services.
He said that his bishop still finds things for him to do in the ward, such as calling ward members to remind them of temple assignments. He also devotes the time required to care for his wife, Realla, who has been paralyzed by a debilitating stroke. The couple served a mission together at the Denver Colorado Temple.
During his Air Force days, Brother Fisher was once a finalist for an opening for a pilot on the Thunderbirds team. That may have explained his emotional reaction as he watched the Thunderbirds dance and soar in the sky above him. Perhaps he was reliving the thrill of piloting a screaming fighter jet. Likely, he never doubted that he could have piloted a jet through aerial maneuvers just as well as the Thunderbird pilots were.
