![](The Beaumont Enterprise_files/090703l1a.jpg) Charles "Chic" Burlingame III showed
early on his interest in planes and flying. As a 6-year-old,
he built a model airplane from scrap lumber and posed for a
photograph taken by a family member in 1955. Burlingame
realized his dream of flight as an adult, posing for a
photograph in the cockpit of a 757. His life ended when the
American Airlines flight he was piloting crashed into the
Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
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BEAUMONT _ Sculptor Ron Petitt was flattered when the woman
called from New York and offered him a commission, but planned to
turn it down.
Petitt, who grew up in Beaumont but now lives in Colorado, had
been working on a demanding project. The former Vietnam vet and
artist who specializes in military figures was sculpting four
life-size works for the 101st Airborne Division National Monument:
male soldiers from World War II, Vietnam and Desert Storm, as well a
contemporary female aviator.
The last thing he wanted was another big job.
And then he saw the photo.
The vintage black-and-white image, taken in England in 1955,
captured a 6-year-old boy, standing with head slightly bowed, a
large wooden airplane propped against his shoulder.
As a surprise for his parents, the child had gathered up scrap
pieces of wood from the alley behind the house and, without any
help, nailed them together to form an airplane, complete with
propellers. On the wings, scrawled in a child's hand, were three
letters.
USA.
Forty-six years later, on Sept. 11, 2001, the boy who loved
airplanes was among 189 people who died when terrorists wrestled
control of American Airlines Flight 77 and slammed it into the side
of the Pentagon.
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Charles Burlingame III, known to everyone as Chic (pronounced
"chick") graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, was an
aircraft carrier-based fighter pilot for eight years, flew
commercial planes for American Airlines for 22 years and spent a
year and a half working for the Lockheed Corporation.
He remained in the naval reserves for 17 years, then volunteered
to be reactivated during the Gulf War. He was assigned to the
Pentagon, where he worked for the Assistant Secretary of Defense.
"Chic would have given anything to be flying in the Gulf War,"
said his sister, Debra Burlingame during a telephone interview from
her home in New York earlier this month. "But he was 41 then and
they would have had to go through quite a list of reserve pilots
before they got to him."
Chic was at the controls of Flight 77 when terrorists hijacked
the plane. One thing is for certain, Debra Burlingame said, Chic
would have done anything to prevent the plane from crashing into the
building where he once worked and that stands as a symbol of the
country he loved and served.
"If he couldn't save that plane, no one could," Debra said.
At Burlingame's memorial service, his best friend and fellow
Annapolis graduate Bart Whitman said to Debra, "Wouldn't it be great
if we could have that picture made into a life-sized sculpture?"
Debra thought it was a wonderful idea.
"This was such a great image, with a Norman Rockwell quality,"
Debra said, "even for people who didn't know who this little boy
was. It has this universal theme of a young child aspiring to
greater things _ The airplane is emblematic of men and women
dreaming of flying and reaching beyond their grasp. It's a heroic
archetype."
Finding out who the little boy would grow up to be made the image
even more poignant, Debra said.
"One of the things I love about that picture is the expression on
his face. You can see he's clearly tickled about what he's done, but
he's a little shy about showing it off. That was what Chic was like
in life. He led a flamboyant life _ but I never heard him brag. He
was not the kind of guy who talked about what he would do. He just
went out and did it."
![](The Beaumont Enterprise_files/090703l1b.jpg) Ron Petitt poses with a
tabletop-sized sculpture of Chic Burlingame as a boy with his
model airplane. Petitt was inspired to create the sculpture by
a family photograph of Burlingame.
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Her brother was "unabashedly patriotic," she said.
"At a time when people considered flag-waving a pejorative, he
was very proud of our country. He believed in service. It's all he'd
wanted to do. It infused virtually everything he did in life. He was
inspired by the history of this country and he wanted to make a
contribution."
When the war in Iraq began, Debra started contacting families of
young American servicemen who died there to offer her condolences.
She didn't want to be intrusive, so she would find addresses through
associations and local churches, then write them.
"I wanted to let these families know that I understood and
appreciated and was grateful above all for the sacrifice their loved
ones had made on behalf of our country. And that it meant a great
deal to me as Chic's sister. I felt a profound connection."
While searching the Internet to locate a serviceman, she ran
across photos of Ron Pettit's military sculptures.
"I was bowled over. I thought, this is the one who is going to do
Chic's sculpture. To find out that Ron is not only incredibly
talented, but that he is a Vietnam vet was the icing on the cake. I
knew he would have the right commitment and would understand this
project."
The Burlingame family contacted Petitt and asked him to sculpt a
tabletop piece and a life-size sculpture.
He said yes.
"When I saw this photograph, that was the deciding factor,
emotionally," Petitt said. "I knew I was going to end up doing it."
The family set up the nonprofit Patriot Dreams Foundation and is
seeking corporate, public and private sponsorships for the
sculptures.
Debra Burlingame said she would like to see the sculptures in
Washington D.C., the Pensacola Naval Air Station, "where every naval
aviator begins his career," and the Top Gun school in Miramar,
California.
The foundation will sell small, tabletop-sized version of the
statue. All monies raised by the foundation will go toward college
scholarships for students enrolled in ROTC programs who are pursuing
military careers.
"Most of the scholarships that are offered currently are to
academic stars, students who are MIT and Harvard bound," Debra said.
"We will be looking for student who come from poor families who
can't afford the top schools, who don't necessarily perform well on
standardized tests but have good academic records and have exhibited
the type of character that indicates they will be superb officers."
Chic, who visited high schools and talked to students about a
career through the naval Academy, helped them with the application
process and mentored them during their careers, would approve, Debra
said.
"He would love this. It's grooming future officers who will be
doing exactly what he did, which is serve their country."
While she is committed to preserving her brother's memory and
life work, Debra said she understands that he is but one of many
whose families suffered great loss.
"There were thousands who perished that day. He would be the
first to say each was valuable and dearly important to their
families."
For more information about Patriot Dreams Foundation, write
Patriots Dreams Foundation, P.O. Box 3498, Mount Vernon, NY, 10553.
For more information on Ron Petitt's work, contact him at (970)
231-6690, or visit his Web site at www.airborneart.com.
Debra Burlingame, along with her brothers Brad Burlingame and
Mark Burlingame will be featured on a live afternoon broadcast from
the Pentagon on MSNBC as part of the 9/11 second anniversary
coverage. The broadcast is set to take place between 1 p.m. and 2
p.m.
Reach this editor at:
(409) 838-2808
mailto:jmcbride@hearstnp.com