I remember that beautiful day with a wisp of white in the blue sky and the promise of joy and happiness in which it held. I remember the viewing stand, people laughing and smiling, awaiting the start of the air show. I remember watching the sky as the various planes flew by. I remember a father holding his toddler, who gleefully stretched his arm as if to grab the aircraft from the sky. I remember the toddler’s expression change from that of wonderment to bewilderment, as his father’s expression changed to horror. I remember not quite understanding what I was seeing as the three planes collided, and debris started raining on the stands. I remember thinking this is a joke, sleight of hand, illusion, but feeling the truth. I remember the screams as flaming parts of planes crashed into the stands. I remember hearing each individual word that was shouted out by hundreds of people as well as the tortured scream of the burning twisted metal. I remember the smell of the fuel, the smell of the burning masses, and the smell of fear. I remember glancing at the blue sky and noting how it was still so beautiful with its wisp of white. I remember feeling like a coward for not caring about anyone else. I remember running, I remember running very hard, very fast. I remember stopping only when I was overtaken by exhaustion, I remember walking miles till I returned to the base in Kaiserslautern. I remember going straight to my room in the barracks, collapsing onto the floor and crying. I remember cursing the memory of that damn blue sky with its wisp of white for leading me to believe in a false wonderment to come. I remember…. The rest of this story goes as follows: since we were the transportation battalion, we had reefers (refrigerated trucks) which we provided as temporary morgues, and volunteers to walk the crash site looking for personal belongings and organic residue, we were giving little flags to place at a spot where we found something, I remember this every day… FLUGTAG 88 28 August 1988 3:44 pm 70 dead 500 injured