Dead Men Not Talking: An Aviator’s Journey Through the Terminals of Life
by This piece is based on my observations of the average American male during forty years as a professional road warrior. I have also worked with over two thousand men as a certified leader of an adult men’s rite of passage and my hope is that my writing will open men’s eyes and hearts to how we isolate, deny our feelings and support our early demise.
We knew the layout of the dungeons of their souls where the dragons and demons lived, where the sediment of debilitating self-doubt, fear and mistrust was deposited.
I saw men shed years in age and gain inches in stature. We helped a Vietnam vet heal twenty five years of grief that he carried since having shot his own men as they slept, under orders, for fear they would leak classified information of having witnessed carefully concealed wartime atrocities.
When the descent into the caverns of our souls was over and the excavation complete, we helped roll the stone away from the men’s hearts and cauterize their wounds. They would rise slowly, wobbly, into the brilliance of a new day, filled with a hope for their lives and the lives they would inevitably touch from this place that was now eternally theirs. In each their own way, they had found God…
The Weaker Sex?
At an adjacent table to my “dead men not talking”, a total contrast in relationship style, were three women, merrily talking, fully engaged with one another – relating, sharing, commenting on the world happening around them….
This picture of healthy relationship, juxtaposed against the “dead men,” made me question our hope as men, and leaders of young men, for the future.
Just last week I was starting yet another seven-day tour of flying by airlining to the city where my luxurious flying boardroom was last parked. As I walked into the departure lounge at the San Francisco airport, I noticed a young man and his wife sitting at one of the departure gates.
He was playing with his new iPhone while she stared vacantly out the window at the giant bird that she hoped and prayed would transport them to a new, more intimate destination. But alas, unless some lonely elder seeks a reprieve from his solitary confinement, takes the young man aside and demonstrates how a life not well attended will drive a stake in the heart of his beloved, the youngster will inevitably become one of the “dead men not talking…”
Bert Botta
Bert is a ROP (retired old airline pilot) who just turned 70. He still flies a Gulfstream aircraft for a large fractional jet company. After three years of self imposed spiritual solitary confinement, God dropped a beautiful, godly woman in his life. In His inimitably quirky style, God seems to be using Bert as living proof that it’s never too late to have a happy childhood…
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