Boxing Among the Band of Brothers

"If I had a pair of gloves, I would box you," Lee said. I had learned to box from a neighbor and at the Y a few years before and had told Lee how much I liked it. He had never tried it, but wanted to. As fate would have it, the next day Sears ran a sale on their exercise equipment including boxing gloves. Two days after that, Lee got his first boxing lesson from me, the first of many. Eventually, he gave as good as he got.

I had some great friends growing up, Lee Ross a.k.a. Big Ross, Brett Ross a.k.a 'lil Ross, brothers Dave and Eric Rand, Mark Garcia, Paulo Venegas, Mark Hansen, Stewart Corey, Keith O'Leary.

We all were into airplanes and we all liked to box. I'm not sure why there's a connection between the two. Maybe its the common elements of danger and adventure combined with the bravado of teenage exuberance. We read the same adventure novels culled from the War section of the second-hand bookstore. The plots were the same--like Ernie K. Gann's novel, Benjamin Lawless-- involving renegade aviators who in the words of one protagonist liked to "fly and fight." Some novels, like "Bugles in the Sky," involved pilots who against all odds take on the air force of some or another communist country to help the oppressed. We passed these paperbacks around till the already yellowing pages just plain wore out. We dug khaki shirts and aviator sunglasses purchased from the Army surplus store across from the airport. A couple of us went on to become professional pilots or worked in the aviation industry. We adopted the moniker from one of Gann's books, "A Band of Brothers," to describe ourselves. We could have been the model for the group of kids in the movie "Iron Eagle" except we didn't have our own airplanes, but many of us worked damn hard to take flying lessons.

Lee taxis for takeoff before his solo flight.

The day Lee soloed in the Piper Cherokee, we had a celebration. His flight instructor cut the tail off his khaki shirt, a time-honored aviation tradition upon soloing. That evening, some of us gathered at the building in the celebration of the achievement, toasting the fledgling pilot with glasses of root beer and smoking cheap cigars trying to look so sophisticated and worldly. He was full of his accomplishment and very cocky. Needless to say, we ended up in some good natured boxing that night.

Some of us liked to box more than others, some of us liked to box all the time, for any reason, at any place. Others were more casual in their approach to the activity. We all hung out in a clubhouse at the airport, called "the building," we all went to the same high school, some of us even dated the same girls, but not at the same time. There was a code of honor about that. We never fought with each other and none of us had the reputation as fighters at school, although we all had the inevitable schoolyard scrapes, which were often more posturing than violent. We also liked to target shoot, hike, boulder, or climb in the nearby mountains. It was a time when you could do all this and not be considered "odd," a "kook" or "dangerous." But most of all for us it was flying and fun fighting.

I'm on belay with my friend and periodic boxing buddy, Eric.

Paul shows Lee some of the techniques for shooting clay targets.

Captain Oldbxr returned from a mission with his P-51 Mustang. He loved the plane so much, that if it could cook, he would have married it.

These images illustrate the great time we had. In the left, I act as a "belay" for simple rock climbing while Eric tails the line. He and I had some great boxing matches. In the other image, Paul, in khaki, is showing Lee how to shoot a shotgun. Their legendary fights are described elsewhere on this website. The third image shows me with my P-51 Mustang. Actually, we were all hanging out at the building when the thing taxied up. The sound it made on approach and during taxi is unmistakable. I still hear it 25 years later. It was one hot plane and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to ham it up with the permission of the pilot. "...there I was, flying over Berlin with ME-109s on my tail..."

A bunch of us had been to Nirvana the day the Stu boxed Lee. That is, we had all gone to the airshow at the Naval Air Station near our homes. Annually, the Navy put on what today's kids would call a "kick ass airshow" featuring the Blue Angels and a lot of old War Birds. We lived for this stuff and October was the holy month with the airshow and the now defunct Mojave air races. And we made pilgrimages to both in an aging fleet of mid-1960s Fords of dubious mechanical integrity, the car of choice for California kids (mine was a 1965 Mustang).

The Corsair, Blue Max, at the airshow at the Naval Air Station, Pt. Mugu.

When we got back to the building that night, Lee and Stu decided to have a little boxing match. Nothing too serious or malicious--just an easy match among friends. I grabbed the gloves from a locker, gave each of the boys a mouthpiece, and helped them wedge their hands into the gloves. The honor then fell to me to say "ding" to signify the start of the round, which lasted until one of the contestants decided they needed a time out, which was usually much shorter than the three-minute rounds many of the guys had sparred at the local Boys Club.

The fight was largely unremarkable. Lee and Stu circled each other, feigning serious punches and laughing, the way friends do. Inevitably, things escalated. Stu, the more skilled and experienced of the two, kept his hands up, where Lee tended to favor the "cowboy style" of the enthusiastic but inexperienced fighter. As is often the case, each landed some good punches, but as usual technique wins. This bout was no exception. Stu led with a left hood aimed at Lee's midsection. Lee reached out with his right to push it away but was just a second too late in reacting. The blow hit Lee with a solid impact. With his hands crossed, Lee couldn't counter. Stu launched his right like a Sidewinder missile to the Lee's jaw, a shot that sent Lee to the floor. All we needed was for him to yell, "I'm hit, mayday, mayday, I'm going down." Although Lee sprang to his feet, neither of the friends really wanted to continue the contest. No one had started the fight to make a point so there was no need to continue on to make one.

Of course, they stayed friends. A few months later, Stu showed up at the high school to board the bus for Grad Night at Disneyland dressed like he was going for a day at the beach, despite prior notification that formal wear was required. Lee, who lived near the school loaned a coat, slacks, dress shirt, tie and shoes to Stu. For months afterward, we laughed every time we thought about "Stu the tourist."

Not bad, Stu, just keep the hand a little higher.

Lee throws a tentative jab. More often than not, we pulled out punches. Hell, we were friends having fun.

A shot to the midsection. The end of the fight is one punch away.

I don't know what happened to some of these guys. Over the decades we kind of drifted apart. One of us made it to the big time. Lee flew helicopters and C-130s, seeing action during Desert Storm.