Monday, November 8, 2021

"The Candy Bomber" spends an evening with "The Destroying Angel"

 

(L to R) Colonel (Ret) Gail Halvorsen and Rick Bennett • Photo credit Halvorsen's eldest grandson

I always wanted to change the world. I spent last night with 101-year-old Colonel Gail Halvorsen, also known as The Candy Bomber. While the Berlin Airlift averted World War III, when Joseph Stalin decided to blockade West Berlin's 2-million starving residents, the real hero of the affair was Gail Halvorsen. He dropped candy in little handkerchief parachutes to the children on the runway approach to East Berlin. Me? I shamelessly promote myself as The Destroying Angel who destroyed the competition for Oracle's Larry Ellison and Salesforce's Marc Benioff. The Fortune 500 companies my ads destroyed include Ashton-Tate, Cullinet, Ask, Informix, and Siebel. But those feats pale in comparison to The Candy Bomber. You can see the history on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGc4vY_GwSc

My guerrilla warfare mentor, Tony Schwartz (creator of the famous Daisy television ad that ran only one time on one network, yet destroyed Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign), once told me that one ad can do more to change the world that all the politicians placed end to end. He should have told me that one brilliant kind-hearted idea could do more to change the world than all the ads placed end to end. Hum. Some guy from Galilee spouted that idea a couple millennia ago.

So a reset is in order. In my wildest imagination, maybe the very unique sci-fi novel I'm finishing will have a positive effect on our intergalactic relationships. Hey, guys, I'm a work in progress.

The kid from Wyoming formerly touting himself as The Destroying Angel