A retired Air Force colonel who flew a combat plane on D-Day celebrated his 95th birthday last week perhaps one of the best ways he knew: by jumping out of an airplane at 12,000 feet.
Hal Shook of North Carolina was a combat pilot during the Allied invasion in June 1944, but after being shot down he continued to fly for the Air Force in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, according to WNCN. Though Shook gets around with the help of a walker, he’s still enthusiastic about being able to take a leap from a plane.
“It’s a joy,” he said. “You’re sitting there, and you can see everything below you. It’s beautiful.”
[WNCN]
More Must-Read Stories From TIME
- How to Help Victims of the Texas School Shooting
- TIME's 100 Most Influential People of 2022
- What the Buffalo Tragedy Has to Do With the Effort to Overturn Roe
- Column: The U.S. Failed Miserably on COVID-19. Canada Shows It Didn't Have to Be That Way
- N.Y. Will Soon Require Businesses to Post Salaries in Job Listings. Here's What Happened When Colorado Did It
- The 46 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2022
- ‘We Are in a Moment of Reckoning.’ Amanda Nguyen on Taking the Fight for Sexual Violence Survivors to the U.N.
Read More From TIME
