{"id":23629,"date":"2013-07-01T01:11:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T04:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=23629"},"modified":"2016-11-26T01:21:23","modified_gmt":"2016-11-26T04:21:23","slug":"christian-fighter-pilot-general-john-russell-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/01\/christian-fighter-pilot-general-john-russell-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Fighter Pilot General John Russell Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" alt=\"General John P. Russell\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/images\/russell.jpg\" width=\"172\" height=\"202\" \/>The Orlando Sentinel <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.orlandosentinel.com\/2013-06-25\/news\/os-obit-john-russell-20130625_1_john-russell-military-service-brigadier\">published the obituary<\/a> of Christian Fighter Pilot and US Air Force Brigadier General <a href=\"http:\/\/www.af.mil\/information\/bios\/bio.asp?bioID=6998\">John P. Russell<\/a>, also known as &#8220;Deacon.&#8221;\u00a0 General Russell flew the F-86 Sabre in 54 combat missions\u00a0during the Korean War, as well as the F-84F, F-100, F-107. and A-7D\u00a0later.\u00a0 While the wing commander at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, he participated in the evacuations of Phnom Penh and Saigon.<\/p>\n<p>Recalling some of his life, his brother recounts a tale that may\u00a0fall under &#8220;the good old days:&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The future general and a fellow fighter pilot were flying side-by-side from South Carolina to Washington, D.C., in the 1950s when they received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to pass over Mill Creek, W.Va., at 2,000 feet.<\/p>\n<p>Russell didn&#8217;t mention it was <!--more-->in a mountain valley at 1,900 feet above sea level.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He buzzed the town twice and did a spiral and a roll-over,&#8221; his 89-year-old brother said. &#8220;The cows wouldn&#8217;t milk and the chickens stopped laying eggs&#8230;You can imagine the discussions at the post office.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While the fighter pilot in him loved flying, that wasn&#8217;t all there was to his life:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The general never really retired, devoting himself to public service and serving as a Presbyterian elder&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The best gift he gave to all of his children was Christianity,&#8221; [daughter] Anne Bailey said, noting he never discussed what he did for others. &#8220;Probably a lot of things will come to light I&#8217;m not aware of now.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>General Russell retired in 1980.\u00a0 He died last week at 84.<\/p>\n<p>What kind of legacy are <em>you<\/em> going to leave?<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Orlando Sentinel published the obituary of Christian Fighter Pilot and US Air Force Brigadier General John P. Russell, also known as &#8220;Deacon.&#8221;\u00a0 General Russell flew the F-86 Sabre in 54 combat missions\u00a0during the Korean War, as well as the F-84F, F-100, F-107. and A-7D\u00a0later.\u00a0 While the wing commander at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, he participated in the [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4085,96,4084,2264,5285,4083,2],"class_list":["post-23629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-anne-bailey","tag-christian","tag-deacon","tag-f-86","tag-fighter-pilot","tag-john-russell","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}