Disclaimer- I do not Planes nor am I old enough to have lived through the Korean and Vietnam Wars. As a result, even though I have done a boat load of research for this story I have had to take a lot of creative latitude at several points. Also, I am a pretty new author (this is only my second long form story), so please forgive my inexperience.

Dedication- To the warriors of the Forgotten War and to the men who flew cargo in it.

Prologue- When Memories Come to Roost

It was all the Dodge photo's fault. If the photo of the smokejumpers sheltering under his wings while during the Great Piston Peak Fire hadn't got viral, Cabbie wouldn't have had to deal with this mess. But the photo had been taken and the reporters had done their job and now questions about Cabbie's entire firefighting and military career were boiling to the surface. Most were questions that people were asking were ones that the C-119 had been avoiding answering for the three decades.

Cabbie knew he wasn't the only plane that the media was currently hounding. The Chief and Dusty had been haunted mercilessly by the tabloids, but both of them had at least given a few interviews to the media. Blade Ranger had even been called to testify in front of Congress. The vultures were still circling those two, but they had started to back off when the realized that neither the helotanker nor the SEAT was going to give them a juicy sound bite.

Unfortunately as the tabloids had lost interest in the former movie star and the racer, they instead turn their attention on digging up dirt on one Col. Cabbie McHale, USA, Retired. Apparently someone got the brilliant idea cold calling the 60 or so C-119's left. The ground ghosts, thank goodness, either kept their mouths shut or chewed the reporters a good one. Hope and Truck up in Alaska, had polite and given a few nonsense answers before hanging up on them. Lift had insisted about talking about Cabbies Hollywood career (which involved a total of three movies that Lift had dragged him into being an extra for when he was visiting).

Everything probably would have been fine if Carl, the snibling twit of a cargo hauler, had given an interview. Carl, the Flying Boxcar who had never had to fight anything in his life, had gave a rambling speech about how C-119's were never meant to fight fires and how Piston Peak's jump plane clearly had a martyr complex that would sooner or later get a whole bunch of vehicles killed. Next think he knew news agencies from around the United States were trying to subpoena his repair records.

"You know you can't hide from them forever right." Maru would sometimes quietly rib him.

Cabbie just harrumphed in reply. He had done a very good job of not letting his past take over his present. There was no way that he was going to let a bunch of reporters dig up his ghosts now.

"This is not healthy for anyone." Old Jammer admitted when one of the groomers brought up the subject of Cabbie at the monthly Piston Peak National Park meeting. "That said, there isn't a whole lot we can do about it. It is McHale's story to tell."

"It becomes a matter for the rest of the park when reports start parking places they are not supposed to." The grouchy Jeep in charge of park security countered. "Fire lanes exist for a reason. Also I am sick and tired of being woken up in the middle of the night because someone has broken into HR again."

"You would think that they would have realized that the Air Attack staffs stuff is up at the air strip after the first three attempts." Someone in the room muttered under their breaths leading the room to dissolve into laughter.

"Well, there may be one way to force the interview." The bright eyed Chevy from account suggested once ever had caught their breath again. "We have the historian from one of his old units talk to him about his military past, then we step in and have one of the Park Service muckitymucks have him discuss his fire career. That way the story is recorded, the people who need access can request it either from the Department of Defense or the Department of the Interior, and people can stop hounding our employee."

"And how are we going to funnel them through 'proper sources'?" Blade Ranger played devil's advocate. "It is not like we have been particularly successful at doing that so far."

"We use the excuse that some of Cabbie's work was classified and that the old plane takes the oath him made to the Air Force as a young plane very seriously. He didn't want to speak about his past because he was worried he might accidently harm the country he as sworn to protect in peace and in war."

"It might work." Blade Ranger admitted quietly. "So who is going to be informing him about this development?"

"And do I at least get a chance to argue against this plane?"

Blade stared up at pissed 40 ton warplane glaring down at him, and the Air Attack Chief was pretty sure that he was going to have to find an excuse to sic certain members of the Smokingjumper team on the various other departments in the park.

"No."

Cabbie continued to glare and for a few long moments Blade was worried that he was about to get squashed. Then the C-119 glanced away.

"Fine. But here are the rules. One, if it is classified I ain't going to be talk about it. Period. Two, if there is someone in the room that I don't want to hear part or the entire story; I reserve the right to stop talking until they clear their butts out of there. Three, no Smokejumper may be in the park whenever I am telling the story. Avalanche as been able to piece together enough war facts from Wikipedia and those war documentaries he is so fond of to give Drip and Pinecone nightmares. The kids' job is hard enough without them carrying some of my baggage as well."

"I think we can work with that." Blade chewed on his lip.

"You better, because otherwise you're going to have to find yourself a new jump plane."

Author's Note- Well, we have made it to the end of the prologue. When I start posting chapters I will be using the end note to give information about where to learn more about the historical facts that I brought up in the chapter, but seeing that there isn't a whole lot of history in this post I will give you a bit more information about the targets I have for posting. Getting Warplanes right has involved a whole lot of research, and as a result I will be posting less often. My goal is to get you a chapter a month, though, there will probably be a couple points through out the year (such as Christmas) that I will manage to give you a second chapter sometime in the month to munch on.

Also, this story is going to be a bit of an epic. It will cover from June 1950 when Cabbie enters the service through 1974 when Cabbie is formally discharged from the service. While I have already written over 10,000 words on this story, is has become pretty clear that is only really scratching the surface of the story and I have a whole lot more writing to do. That said, I hope that you will be willing to join me on this journey to rediscover Cabbie's past and to remember the forgotten war. See you next month.