“I know one thing,” soft-spoken WWII veteran Ben Dodson of Altoona said when asked about his military years. “I lost a wing at 30,000 feet. I waited about a minute to pull my chute cord so I would be down where I could breathe.”
Dodson shares the story of pulling out of the aircraft repair shop, at night, a little while before the accident.
“The ‘Old Man’ wanted me to “fly it high!” Dodson said. “Afterward, I walked for miles. I knew the road was east. Finally, I was sitting on the road and someone got me and took me to the hospital at Quantico.”