"Kermit," as his family and friends always called him, was born in Bluefield, West Virginia, the blue-eyed golden-haired youngest son of a self-made man, Emory E. Jones, and his wife, Bessie Keys Jones. My grandfather "E. E." was a native Virginian, born in Bedford in 1882 to a family whose fate followed the doomed Confederacy. Once prominent landowners, loss of capital and bad investments led them to near poverty and E. E.'s father, my great-grandfather, was a photographer, often traveling from place to place, recording family life of those days.

E. E. fired furnaces in Chicago while attending Lewis Institute to become skilled as an engineer in the new technology of electricity. He later supervised the electrification of coal mines in West Virginia, rising to superintendent of mines, general manager, and, finally, Vice President and General Manager of Winding Gulf and Lamar Collieries, coal producers in southern West Virginia. It was during the middle years of E. E.'s career that Kermit was born, and he grew up in a privileged household, with many of the luxuries of the times.

I feel fortunate to have had a close bond with my grandparents, who told me funny stories about my dad and showed me his baby pictures, early art work, and places around the house where he had made his mark...such as the birdbath he built with a friend, the tree outside his bedroom, where he climbed in after late-night parties, and the big old-fashioned bathtub where he bathed his beloved German Shepherd, Flops. The dog himself was special to me; when I was learning to walk, Flops let me pull myself up holding onto his fur, and he walked very slowly as I tottered along with him. As a child I spent many happy summers in Bluefield, where my dad's presence was almost palpable in every room and corner of the house. I even heard his voice on old wax recordings the family made together in the late 1930s. The companionship of my aunts and uncles, who told me loving stories of my dad and his escapades and adventures, helped me to know him. My Uncle Edward, now 87, is especially beloved; he roomed with my dad as they grew up and knew him well. Edward built my swing and hung it from the highest limb; he took me on jaunts with him in the car, taught me to count money and play Monopoly, and to shoot craps, "like the boys did."

Kermit attended Bluefield College, where he distinguished himself as a ladies man with beautiful manners. (I was told the latter by a dignified old lady who had known him in those days). He later entered the cadet corps at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg. While there he suffered an appendicitis attack and was taken to Lewis-Gale Hospital in Roanoke, where my mother, Hope Ervine, worked as a laboratory technician. She took blood, he flirted, and sometime later, as she left work, there he stood, with a bouquet of flowers.

They are a handsome pair in the only photo I have of them together -- his hat at a jaunty angle, big grin on his face; my mother looking proud as punch. They were married quickly, in March 1942, and I followed shortly, in August. On the day I was born, my dad was on a troop train headed for basic training at Kelly Field (now Lackland AFB), in San Antonio, TX, one of many stops he would make on his long journey to Europe and the war.

He entered aviation cadet training at Cimarron Field in Oklahoma City, then went to Enid Army Flying School; his letters overflow with his love of flying, but he washed out in December 1942 because, he said, "they think I'm too technical a pilot." He was crushed, because he wanted to prove to E. E. that he could succeed on his own, but he was relegated to instructing new recruits in various basic studies. Later, he and others who washed out after only 30 hours' flying time were offered a chance to try again, but he did not. By then he was suffering recurrent severe respiratory infections.

Kermit shipped over to Europe in July 1943, after coming east on two visits where he saw me...his only child. My mother and I were then living on her family's Virginia farm, with her sister and my cousins. Less than a year old on his last visit, I don't remember my dad, but my mother told me a sweet anecdote: He was wearing a light jacket, and he zipped me up in it with him, holding me close to his chest as they walked up the hill to visit the old aunts. He held the umbrella carefully over me, while my mother got a soaking in the cold spring rain.

In England, my dad was assigned to the 20th Bomb Wing, 8th Air Force, near London. In an office job, he could have stayed safe until the war ended; after all, Army doctors had warned him not to fly again, but he wrote my mother in early 1944 that he had to get into the fight. Too many of his friends had been killed for him to continue in good conscience as a noncombatant. He went to replacement gunners school in Ireland, and by October 1944 was assigned to the 9th Air Force, 409th Bomb Group, at "A-48," Bretigny, France. His letters described the countryside and the people, and how his French accent was improving. Several times he went into Paris, not far away, which he said was the most beautiful city he'd ever seen. Conditions at the 409th were less spectacular; one letter said their quarters had improved, since their tent now had a floor.

He wrote very little about the missions, but said sometimes the flak came "close, mighty close." He knew he'd be ok, he said, since "you know they say that only the good die young." He said he couldn't wait to see the hills of West Virginia again. On his 10th mission, about to make sergeant, he went as a gunner with a flight of six A-26 Invaders to bomb and strafe a German road convoy, supporting the American infantry as they pushed the Germans back across their own borders. Flying in the lead aircraft, with "the best pilot in the squadron," he died. The mission was described as a turkey shoot. I've been told by a German historian that the road convoy was armed with a secret weapon that day...a Foenrockete...a ground to air missile. The experimental mission, meant to prove the versatility of the A-26 at low levels, was flown at less than 1000 feet over a road in Germany, between Dasburg and Arzfeld. It was a disaster. The plane my dad was in crashed at Stolzembourg, Luxembourg, a few minutes' flying time from where they were hit. Oddly, perhaps prophetically, my mother and father were both born in June; they both died in January.

Buried in the American Cemetery at Hamm, Luxembourg, Kermit was never to see those hills in West Virginia again, but he is remembered every day in the hearts and minds of his loved ones back home. My uncle Edward still tells funny stories about Kermit and his bizarre and irrepressible humor. And my father couldn't have asked for a more beautiful place to rest for eternity, or for more kindly and loving friends to remember him than the citizens of that tiny country far away. The people of Luxembourg have big hearts.