Gail S. Halvorsen - The Candy Bomber: Untold Stories from the Berlin Airlift’s Uncle Wiggly Wings

APPENDIX

Gails Dead Sea Saying

I have learned that giving service to others brings genuine fulfillment. The Dead Sea is dead because it wraps its arms around the sea and does not allow anything out or give anything away.

In mans search for fulfillment and happiness, material rewards pale compared to the importance of gratitude, integrity, and service before self. Gratitude brings unexpected special blessings, communication is facilitated, understanding is accomplished, and progress is accelerated. Gratitude, integrity, and service to the unfortunate provide more rewards than all things material. These principles are the foundation upon which hope is born. They provide the strength by which hope endures.

The thirty-one Americans and the thirty-nine British pilots and crew members who gave their lives to deliver freedom and democracy to a former enemy during the Berlin Airlift gave the ultimate sacrifice to serve a former enemy. Service to others before self was their mission. It is the only true recipe by which full fulfillment may be attained in this life.

Lessons Learned from the Best Teachers

Written in 2013 by Gail S. Halvorsen

1. The desire for freedom is inborn in every human soul, no matter on which side of the border he or she is born. When helped too much, I do it myself! comes in every language from the lips of most children when they are two- or three-years old. Free agency is already at work, but not all are free to choose.
2. Children hold the future of the whole world in their hands; our children and everyones children.
3. Keep your word. Integrity begets hope, faith and peace of mind for you and others. A West Berliner recipient of a chocolate bar once told me, Without hope the soul dies. His hope and faith were based on the belief that the British, French and Americans would stand by him and someone in America cared.
4. Give service to others if you seek genuine fulfillment. A happy person has goals that include others. Those devoid of service are wandering Dead Sea souls. No charity here.
5. Be grateful to others with words, service or goods and without preconditions. Unexpected blessings and rewards will be yours. More important, another persons burden will be made lighter.
6. Seek a positive outlook on life and the world will be manageable, even if difficult. Attitude is not everything but it does affect everything. How you complete the mission and in the world of work attitude determines your success or failure. It is more important than grade point average.
7. Little decisions put your footsteps on the path that will lead you to your final destination, good or bad.
8. It is never so good or never so bad that the existing situation can not be improved with patience, determination, love and hard work.
9. My mother always said, Perseverance wins! She was right. Patience and work are again the keys.
10. A good woman is uniquely powerful and inspirational. She is to be honored and prized.
11. My father taught that we should not only endure to the end, but also strive to excel through the journey.
12. Families that work together and pray together are the ideal building blocks for a beneficial society.
13. My scoutmaster said, Always do your best! He was right.
14. If there is a conflict when you make a decisionput principle before pleasure. The Berlin kids did. Freedom, sometime in the dim future, was more important than the pleasure of enough to eat now.
15. As you travel the road of life look in the rear view mirror to learn but do not look too long for the what if, what might have been, or how great or bad you were, or how bad someone else was. If you dwell too long on these things you will surely miss the turn off on the road to what you might become. Look forward through the windshield for the good in the world and how you can make it better.
16. Similarly we all have mental and physical mountains to climb. Part way up you may become weary with the struggle and discouraged. Pause for a moment. Look back and take heart from the good and how far you have come. On the morrow look up. Resume the climb with new determination and confidence.
17. God is alive and well. We plan our challenging journey toward our desired objective on this space ship Earth. He has given us a GPS that will direct us around the pitfalls of life and radar that we may not ice our wings, or hit rocks in that which clouds our vision. If we keep our batteries properly charged we will make the journey safely back to Him.

Honors and Awards

Gail has received numerous awards and recognition for his humanitarian service. These below represent only a sampling of such. One of his most prized awards is the German Service Cross to Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz), awarded him in 1974 for his service as Air Force Commander in Berlin.

Gails autobiography, The Berlin Candy Bomber, is now in its fourth printing.

Dining halls, plazas, schools, and the Halvorsen Loader have been named after him. Musicals and plays are performed at schools depicting the Airlift and the role of the Candy Bomber.

More recently, in 2013, the Alfred Wegnere School in Berlin held a ceremony to change its name to honor Gail. It is now the Gail S. Halvorsen Schule. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Human Letters degree from Chapman University for his lifetime of service. In 2012, he was given a humanitarian award from the Institute for German-American Relations.

Also in 2012, the story of the Berlin Candy Bomber was the subject for the script for the Mormon Tabernacle Choirs Christmas Concert with Tom Brokaw. Gail appeared as part of the program, and thousands of parachutes were dropped from the ceiling of the LDS Conference center. In 2014 he was featured in the LDS Church documentary Meet the Mormons.

In 2014, he received the Lufthansa Airline Lifetime Achievement Award and a US Congressional Gold Medal. He was awarded the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award from the Federal Aviation Administration in 2015 and the Lucius D. Clay Medal from the Federation of German-American Clubs. In 2016, Gail received the Kiddie Hawk Childrens Award from the Kiddie Hawk Air Academy at the Living Legends of Aviation Awards, and Lifetime Membership in the CARE organization of Luxembourg.

In 2017, he was recognized in the Utah Senate for his humanitarian service. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Hero Award from the American Red Cross.

In addition to these many honors, he continues to receive countless letters and emails from children and adults, both German and American, from around the world telling him how his story has affected their lives. Students contact him to write reports on the Berlin Airlift for school, and talk to him about what they have learned in school about the Airlift. He is living history. Schoolteachers and students have written to invite him to visit after learning his story. He has made visits to schools to talk with the children, share his books, and drop chocolate-laden parachutes from airplanes and helicopters. Children learn history through the story