by Senior Midnight Freemasons Contributor

Greg Knott, 33°

Col. Richard B. Bushing and Greg Knott

Since retirement, I have been pursuing a hobby and perhaps more in aviation photography.  I have attended numerous airshows, visited air museums, stopped in small towns looking at the military aircraft they have on display in front of the American Legion Post and more.

My travels have taken me across the US, including a recent trip to Arizona.   I made my way to Tucson and visited the Pima Air and Space Museum.  This museum is adjacent to Davis-Mothan AFB, home of the 309th Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Group (309 AMARG)B and the museum has been the recipient of many of the retired aircraft that come to their final home in aircraft boneyard at Davis-Mothan.   

The museum now has a collection of over 400 aircraft, with most of them in great condition.    These aircraft range from pre WWII aircraft to modern recently retired aircraft.   Most of the planes were flown to the museum for their final flight.  The Arizona desert is a great place to keep planes, when they are outside for display. 

On the grounds of Pima Air and Space is a smaller museum, the 390th Memorial Museum.   This museum pays tribute to the crews who flew in B-17 bombers during WW II.  A fully restored B-17 is prominently featured in the building and the exhibits tell the stories of those who flew aboard the B-17 and the ground crews who supported them.

The particular day I was visiting, the museum had an author, Col. Richard B. Bushing there to talk about his book “My Wars”.  Col. Bushing had a 32 career as an aviator in the United States Air Force, first serving as a B-17 pilot during WWII and finishing his career flying an F-4 in Vietnam.

Col. Bushing told the stories of the B-17 crews.  He recounted the heavy losses they sustained as they flew from bases in England, flying over the English Channel with missions in Germany and elsewhere, to bomb amongst other targets, factories that were vital to the German war efforts.    Most of the time, the B-17 did not have fighter escorts, as the escort planes did not have sufficient range to stay with the B-17.  This changed later in the war as the P-51 Mustang came into service and it had sufficient range to escort the B-17.   The famed Tuskegee Airmen were amongst the crews who flew the P-51 and served as escorts.

The Germans knew the B-17s were on the way, as their radar could pick them up as they left England.  The Americans primarily bombed during the day, as US Army Air Force leadership thought that was the most effective method.   The crew flew at altitudes of up to 29,000 feet and faced heavy flak from the Germans below.   The B-17s had to fly in tight formations to help their rate of survival and to be most effective.  

B-17 losses were often heavy.  Each B-17 had a 10 man crew and when a plane was shot down, the crew’s only hope was to bail out of the plane and hope to evade capture by German forces on the ground.  

Crews were under extreme duress.  The B-17 is an unpressurized plane, which meant that above 10,000 feet, crews had to wear an oxygen mask.   This was in addition to heavy jackets and clothing to keep them from freezing to death.  The air temperature could drop to -50 degrees below zero.   All the while the plane had to be flown, the radio manned, the bomb site scoped in for accuracy, 50mm guns to be manned and reloaded. 

If a crew member was able to fly and complete 25 missions, they would have completed their service and rotated back home.  Crews only had a 25% chance of completing their 25th mission.  Hundreds of crew members were lost after being shot down and hundreds more were taken as prisoners of war after being captured by the Germans.

The bravery of these crews is easy to forget today, as we are now 80 years after the close of WWII.  Yet the events of the current day are still influenced by those brave service personnel from decades ago.   Col. Bushing at 102 years of age is one of the very last of the surviving B-17 crew members.   He has made it his life’s mission to tell the stories of these brave men, in hopes of keeping their story alive and help ensure the sacrifices they made are not forgotten.

I want to thank Col. Bushing for his service and all those who flew, manned and crewed the B-17s to help ensure our freedom.

~GJK

Greg Knott is the Senior Contributor to the Midnight Freemasons and a member of the craft since 2007.

When I petitioned York Rite years ago, I petitioned too early in my Masonic path. It wasn’t that I needed more time to learn my Blue Lodge lessons, it was that there existed too few learned companions that could teach the deep lessons. The same remains today, meaning in most cases I had to learn the lessons on my own and without any mentoring, just like in Blue Lodge. Fast forward to receiving my Orders in Knights Templar, and I was stunned at the words I heard, the amazing allegory, the beautiful charges to be a better man. And I held deep hope in my heart when I attended my first and second Commandry meetings which also turned out to be my last.

Why would they be my last? After all, I experienced sheer beauty and powerful imagery in receiving the orders. How can I make a case for Templarism if I myself became disillusioned over stale coffee and dragging business meetings? You know, the same stale coffee and dragging business meetings we endure in Blue Lodge? I experienced even worse in the Asylum. I listened to adult men argue over the placement of a ribbon or pants length on a uniform of no significance, argue over foot placement during extremely basic marching and maneuvering drills, and watched them wear funny hats in the name of a 150-ish-year-old tradition. A tradition supposedly connected to a centuries-old religious military order that quite possibly obtained and applied the spiritual teachings of the East.

Doesn’t sound like much reason yet, right? The meaning is lost on those focused on the outer trappings. That is partly my definition of outer trappings: physicality that inhibits passage into the inner workings of anything. Remember the lessons of the Entered Apprentice to not get caught up in the outside world, to subdue your passions so that you might shed the physical and thereby get on with the important stuff. Today’s Templars with a few exceptions lost their way, and we can bring life back into an organization with such beautiful lessons. We must be the ones who teach those lessons because those adept at teaching the lessons within the organization become scarce. There’s egotistical infighting at the leadership levels as recently exposed at the national level, there’s devolution into the unimportant worries of whether a uniform is worn correctly, or the hat has enough feathers, or the foot is lifted high enough while marching. It’s all allegory. It isn’t important except to those who never understood the allegory.

Knights Templar and Templarism is indeed worth saving, and we should make the effort. Templarism allegory demonstrates the 24-inch gauge by teaching us to work toward preparation and to balance our time. It teaches personal ritual by demonstrating preparing the uniform as an allegory of cleansing and preparing yourself to meditate or do inner work (see an excellent article or catch the YouTube reading of Personal Ritual by Brother Chuck Dunning). Templarism teaches the allegory of the righteous battle as a means toward working hard to find your higher self, and finally, Templarism parallels the journey toward enlightenment by the finding of the Lost Word. What? No lost word? Templarism calls it the Holy Grail.

As I write this it has been approximately twenty-four hours since I sat in the East for the very first time. Yesterday I had the honor of conferring the Entered Apprentice degree on two new Brothers of our Lodge. This was our Lodge’s first EA degree since June of 2021, and the first degree ever in our new building.

My usual vocation is in restaurant consulting and sales, and I work six days a week consistently. Saturday is my only day off, which is why I scheduled the degree for that day. It led to better attendance and as many of our Brothers are older, they do not want to be getting home super late on a Monday night, which is our usual meeting day.

As Junior Warden it was also my responsibility to provide the meal for this degree. Since this was a Summoned Communication on a Saturday afternoon, I decided we would have a nice brunch prior to the degree. The menu consisted of a few different egg dishes, scones, a few different baked French toast dishes, sausage gravy and biscuits, potatoes, and yogurt and fruit parfaits. Of course, when I decided on the menu, I was not considering my wife would be away and unable to assist in getting everything together, but luckily my sixteen-year-old son was able to help me the morning of.

With his assistance I was able to pull everything together in time, get to the Lodge and set up before the majority of people came in hungry, and finish my personal preparations to get ready for the Degree itself. The meal was very well received, and I received many compliments from the Brethren in attendance.

A normal stated meeting of our Lodge sees attendance of between eight to twelve Brothers on average. I was thrilled to see that about twenty-five Brothers attended the degree, many from neighboring Lodges. This was the first time in our new Lodge room that all the chairs had bodies in them, even in the North and it was fantastic to see. I think it is such an amazing thing when so many like-minded people come together in a common purpose, in this instance the initiation of two worthy men into our Fraternity.

Overall, the day was fantastic, and ranks as one of the single best events of my Masonic journey. Sure, there were a few hiccups, a missed line here or there, but nothing that could have potentially detracted from the experience of initiation for our two new Brothers, and that is all that really mattered.

One thing that really stood out to me was how many Brothers approached me to say how they didn’t know how I had time to get everything done with my busy work schedule. Not trying to be braggadocious, but I hear this so often, whether in regards to educational pieces I put together, creating our quarterly newsletter, or preparing our meeting meals. It really comes down to one simple thing, if something is truly important to you, it is easy to find the time.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said “One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.” I have certainly found that to be true. Prior to becoming a Mason, I was working like a dog. Seventy plus hour weeks, lots of travel, not enough family time, most of us have been in that rut before. Since then, I have really taken the lessons of our working tools to heart, especially that of the twenty-four inch gauge. Now, I am not saying I divide my time the way we are taught, rather it is understanding the concept of finding balance. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

While I was internalizing our lessons, I started to discover a lot about myself. While I have always been a voracious reader, I also watched a lot of television to “wind down” at night. It’s amazing how fast a few hours go by when binge watching The Office or Vikings. I started to limit that time and use the reminder for things that I could feel satisfied after completed. Researching some topic of interest, spending more time with my wife and children, studying our ritual, or reaching out to a Brother. I started putting limits on my work as well, closing the laptop and leaving the office, setting away from office messages on my email on days off, responding to texts with I’ll call you back tomorrow morning. What began to happen was essentially I found hours more every day I could put to better use.

Sometimes I still wish there were more hours in the day, but by getting rid of some of the superfluous items in our lives and focusing on what is really important, we can all extend our twenty-four inch gauge just a bit. Spend more quality time with the people in our lives that matter and participate in activities that feed our minds and our souls.

~EG

Erik M. Geehern is currently Junior Warden of Goshen Masonic Lodge #365 in Goshen, NY under the Grand Lodge of New York. He was raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason in October of 2019 and since then has served as Assistant Secretary, Mentor, and Charitable Committee member and chairman. He writes and curates a newsletter for his Lodge quarterly which disseminates education, history, and esoterics. He is also a member of the Grand College of Rites and the Kansas Lodge of Research. He works in restaurant operations & consulting, and when not engaged in his usual vocation, or laboring in the Craft, he loves spending time with his wife and two children.