Gloomy Gus got his name at Brooks Field, the army primary flying school.
He was always going to get washed out of the school the next day. When
he graduated from Brooks he wasn't going to last three weeks at Kelly,
the advanced school, because he had got through Brooks by luck anyway.
When he graduated from Kelly, the hottest pilot in his class, he would
never get a job in commercial flying, so he might just as well have been
washed out at Kelly.
I saw him several months later in Chicago. He was flying one of the best
runs on the western division of the mail. He was sure it wouldn't be
very long before he cracked up, night flying, and disabled himself for
life, so what good was his mail job?
I saw him several years after he had been transferred to the eastern run
over the Allegheny Mountains. He didn't know what good the additional
money he was making was going to do him when he was dead. Didn't all the
hot pilots get it in those mountains?
He took a vacation from the passenger lines and went on active duty with
the army. I saw him at Mitchell Field. He said he was taking his
vacation flying because he wanted to fly some army ships for a change
and have some fun. "But you know, I shouldn't have done it," he said.
"I've been flying straight and level too long. I almost hit a guy in
formation this morning. I probably won't live long enough to get back to
the lines."