Who is Hugh Swensen?

Edwin Swensen died when his B29A bomber crashed in Korea. His 15-year-old son, Hugh, tearfully swore to avenge his father’s death. Virginia Platt Swensen wearily consoled her son, saying, “You’ll get your chance, son. There’ll be another ‘police action’ in a few years.” The sad irony in her answer slid right past young Hugh but the words, “police action,” stuck with him. He planned to join the U.S. Air Force and be ready for the next police action to wreak his vengeance. To that Virginia replied, “Over my dead body.”

A little hazy on aphorisms, Hugh understood his mother to be saying, “I should live so long.” Determined to prove her wrong, he ignored extra-curricular activities to concentrate on making outstanding grades. Graduating as Fairfield High class valedictorian, he caught the eye of Congresswoman Alicia Christiansen Fierro. She nominated him for the Air Force Academy, to his mother’s dismay. She grudgingly said, “At least don’t be a pilot and get killed like your father did.” That plea involved no ambiguous sayings, so Hugh obediently specialized in security services. It included law enforcement, which sounded like “police action,” and intelligence, which sounded intelligent.

As the only child of two only children, Hugh’s mother’s death from a heart attack left him pretty much alone in the world except for his brothers and sisters in uniform. He cleaned out her third grade classroom at Fairfield Elementary, put her house on the market and returned to his home, the Air Force Academy.

A few years after Hugh graduated, the Air Force sent him to Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi, to find out why aircraft parts kept disappearing. Compelled by the base Commander to serve as a judge at the local high school science fair, Hugh found himself smitten by a fellow judge – Claire McClanahan – a student at Mississippi State College for Women, or “The W” as it is universally known. Attractive, super smart, and fearlessly assertive, she rebuffed him, saying, “The last thing in the world I want to be is an Air Force wife.”

Hugh promised Claire that he would never propose to her, so she consented to dating. Then one brilliant spring morning she said, “Let’s drive to Alabama and get married.” As they say, the rest is history. Or is it fiction?