Sp otl ight on the National Council
“ High Flight ”
Don Monaco ’55
By John Gillespie Magee JR. ’40
1953, having just completed his sophomore year at Avon Old Farms School, Don Monaco ’55 unknowingly launched his flying career in spectacular style with a publicity stunt. The makers of the new Piper Tri-Pacer were looking for someone to learn to fly the airplane and actually solo, all in the same day. Monaco nailed it in two and a half hours. He went on to achieve flight instructor status at age 18; he was also the youngest person to earn his private and commercial pilot’s licenses. “I’ve been flying for more than half of the history of aviation,” Monaco muses. As a student at Dartmouth, he established a fledgling flying club that soon flourished and continues to flourish more than five decades later. An ROTC candidate, he actually taught the navigation and meteorology courses he was supposed to be taking during his junior year. Upon graduation in 1959, Monaco served six years in the Air Force. He was the youngest combat commander in the Strategic Air Command during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War, flying B-52s that carried nuclear warheads during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Back in the States, stationed in South Dakota, Monaco learned he was to be sent back to Vietnam for six months. A timely call from Pan American Airways completely changed his life’s direction, however. Instead of Vietnam, he found himself in San
Francisco, flying first 707s and later 747s to 117 countries. He also spent the better part of the 1980s making winter trips to Avon Old Farms School to teach a course in navigation. Monaco retired in 1991 and has been an active alumnus as a member of the National Council and makes frequent trips back to campus. During this fall’s dedication ceremony for the new Veterans Tribute, Monaco recited a poem written by John Gillespie Magee Jr.’40, “High Flight,” the official poem of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force. Monaco notes that the poem truly reflects the feelings he too experienced while flying combat missions. Monaco is a member of the National Council and a highly accomplished veteran of the Air Force, so it was fitting that he be included in the ceremony, held on Veterans Day. However, with trademark humility, Monaco observes that he has benefited from his contributions to the military and to Avon Old Farms School far more than he has given. “I certainly served, but had only felt that it was my inherent duty to do so,” he remarks. “Where did that come from? Je ne sais pas. Perhaps from Junior ROTC at Avon, under General Caldwell? I told the Council members that I did not think that my work needed to be ‘memorialized.’ I felt that I got more out of those six years than I put in to them. “But I think it is important for it to be on our campus for the young people to see what the graduates ahead of them have done for their countries,” he continues. “I think it is good for them to know that it happened—that our Avonians actually participated, not just unknown names. They are real people. “It serves as a reminder of what’s gone before us, and what it takes to keep our freedom, our liberty, our country the way it is. It’s not free. A lot of lives went in to it.” *editor’s note: portions of this article written by susan haile
Before John Gillespie Magee Jr. ’40 was a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, he was a budding writer at Avon Old Farms School, even publishing a “handsome book of poems” while at Avon. He enlisted after his graduation from Avon in the spring of 1940. He received his wings in the fall of 1941 at the age of 19; “High Flight” was written on September 3, 1941, and published in the Avonian on November 20 of that same year. Tragically, in December of 1941, Magee suffered a fatal midair collision during a pilot training mission. Since Magee’s death, the poem’s status has been greatly elevated. Written as a paean to military pilots, the poem now appears in various air training schools and flying museums in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. It has also been set to music, including one adaptation by John Edward Turner of the U.S. Air Force Academy Band. It is the official poem of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force and must be recited from memory by fourth-class cadets at the United States Air Force Academy, where it is displayed in the Cadet Field House.
The Avonian Fall 2016
17