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Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds
of earth
And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sunsplit clouds and done a hundred things
You've not dreamed of, wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting winds along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God
History: High Flight was written by Pilot
Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr., an American citizen
who was born of missionary parents in Shanghai and educated
in Britain's famed Rugby School.
He went to the United Stated in 1939, and at the
age of 18, won a scholarship to Yale. But he felt he
must aid the cause of freedom and instead enlisted in
the Royal Canadian Air Force in September, 1940. He
served overseas with an RCAF Spitfire Squadron until
his death on active service on December 11, 1941.
His sonnet, composed in September 1941 as the exultant
freedom of soaring 30,000 feet made a word-pattern in
his mind, was scribbled on the back of a letter to his
mother in Washington, shortly after he returned to earth.
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ACC
- Air Combat Command
AETC
- Air Education and Training Command
AFMC
- Air Force Materiel Command
AFSPC
- Air Force Space Command
PACAF
- Pacific Air Forces
AFSOC
- Air Force Special Operations Command
AMC
- Air Mobility Command
USAFE
- United States Air Forces Europe
AFRC
- Air Force Reserve Command