The Day the Red Baron Died

Today is the 93rd anniversary of his death on April 21, 1918.

The science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein wrote in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long that "The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of 'loyalty' and 'duty.' Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed."

I wonder if I recognized and identified with the concepts of loyalty and duty even as a five year old boy when I first read about the World War One flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the Red Baron. He was a great hunter, had keen eyesight, and what could be called situational awareness. While most men in aerial combat were lucky if they could even just look out for themselves, he was able to keep track of what all the men in his squadron were doing at all times.

After they landed, the others were amazed that von Richthofen could tell them in detail what they had done right and what they had done wrong in the previous combat. I always wanted to be like von Richthofen, somebody respected for outstanding abilities at what they do but even more, somebody that others could count on. I have always tried to be that type of friend.

As for duty, von Richthofen was seriously hurt in aerial combat on July 6, 1917 but survived to fight again. He never should have seen combat after that serious head wound, and he was urged to take a job as an instructor behind the lines. He didn't want any special treatment just because he was famous. He said that if any ordinary soldier had suffered the same wound, that soldier would have been sent back to the front to fight as soon as possible. Also, he didn't want to abandon his comrades at the front. He had a sense of obligation to his comrades and to his country. For some reason that really struck a chord with me, and he has always been one of my role models.

Yes I know there were bad things about him. He enjoyed hunting, even if the prey was other people. But he was loyal and courageous, and he exemplified almost as much as it is possible for any human to do, the twin concepts of loyalty and duty so highly praised by that popular science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein.

I wrote an informative speech about the Fokker Triplane (made famous by the Red Baron) that is one of the better concise sources of information about this aircraft on the internet. I even wrote a song about the character and career of the Red Baron and posted a music video on YouTube. The song lyrics are historically accurate, focusing mainly on the day he was wounded July 6, 1917. The images used in the video are also historically accurate. Several noted aviation artists gave me permission to use images of some of their artwork in this video.

46th anniversary of the Beatles recording Help!

The Beatles recorded the song Help! the evening of April 13, 1965, in twelve takes during a four hour recording session at Studio 2, Abbey Road Studios, London, England. The producer was George Martin. The engineer was Norman Smith.

This is one of John Lennon's favorite songs from his time with the Beatles. I like it too. I usually only play my own original songs; this is one of the few "covers" I do of songs by other artists. I have listened to it and played along to it on guitar literally thousands of times the past five or six years. I play both John's rhythm guitar parts and George's lead guitar parts in my arrangement, trying to get the sound and timing as close as possible to the original version. Sometimes I add extra verses of my own derivations of this classic song.

The last time I was recorded playing this song was in December 2009. I play and sing it much better now than then, but have not yet been re-recorded. I got most of the song the first few days of playing along to it. Sometimes months go by without my learning anything new to improve my playing of it, but once in a while my ears and brain pick up something that I hadn't heard before. Listening to the studio takes helps a lot, also the live versions. I hope to re-record this song sometime in the next few months (maybe a lot sooner). If so, it will be posted on my web site and possibly also on YouTube.