This account of the Blood Chit Presentation was written by Jim Cavanaugh.

Bob/Group,

We arrived on Saturday morning about 10:00, and met Lois and Doyle's sister, Jodie, at the house in Burnsville. Together we went and spent most of the day at the hospice with Doyle. Doyle's other sister, Harriett, and her husband Ken, and Lois' brothers, Ralph and Alan, spent time with us as well, as did Harriett's daughter, Missy, and the Larsons' oldest son, Jim, and his roommate, Kurt. Daughter Mary was inbound from Texas, due in at about the time of our departure.

I was not prepared for what I saw, but he was fighting the fight. When Pat and I entered his room, and got close to the bedside, he shared, in a whisper, that his voice was gone. The last radiation treatments, last week, had taken away his ability to speak in a normal tone. It was clear that he recognized who we were, and we caught a few smiles in our conversation. I told him I was carrying a presentation from the PWG, and would bring it back on Sunday.

Talking to the nurses on Saturday, they were estimating he had, maybe a week. By Sunday, all of that had changed. When we arrived at the hospice, around 10:00, the nurse told us that it could be any time, but certainly in the day or two. There was a marked difference in his color, breathing, and awareness from Saturday. Lois thought we ought to go ahead with the presentation. Needless to say, I did not record the event on camera, out of respect for Doyle.

In any case, I told him that "his boys" in the Prop Wash Gang had wanted him to have this framed blood chit, that he and they, and airmen back to the CBI theater in WWII, had carried when they went into harms way, to guarantee safe passage in the event of a mishap. I told him that I had seen and read countless expressions of good will from his colleagues and charges, from airmen through GO's, and that all wished him well. I told him that many of the accounts I had read were from fellows he had been compelled to discipline, some more than once, yet unanimously, they had said that Doyle was the fairest, and most respected commander they had. Even in the state he was in on Sunday, I detected in his visage, facial movements that told me he understood.

Please tell the Prop Wash Gang, Bob, (or Bubba, if you're on this group) that the Boss checked out on his final sortie with his ticket for safe passage in hand. Thanks to PWG for making that gesture, and personal thanks from me for allowing me to do the presentation. As Lois and Nancy's notes said, he passed at around 6:00 PM, peacefully, surrounded by family.

For Pat and me, this was a very emotional experience, for Doyle was more than a commander to me. As many of you know, I, unlike most of you, did not continue my career in the Air Force, but left after my only overseas tour, at the 90th, to complete my education and to join NSA, where I served for 30 years until my retirement. We got to know Doyle and Lois very well while on Okinawa, through an education and church connection. Lois had asked my wife Pat, an English teacher at K-9 and Kubasaki High School, to tutor their second son Mark, in reading. Through that connection, and singing in the same church choir at Kadena, we were fortunate to get to know Lois and Doyle, as well as all four kids, on a different level than most. Of course, we always maintained that professional separation that our respective ranks required. After Okinawa (we left in May of 70, Doyle and Lois in July), we kept in touch, and over the years, he and I became Godparents to each other's offspring (Doyle to my daughter, Cathy, and Pat and me to Doyle's granddaughter, Meredith--Nancy's daughter). We have been very close over the years, and it was important to us that we be in Minnesota for this event. I was fortunate to grow to appreciate him and Lois on so many levels over the years, and to benefit from the huge impact he had on my career, from his work ethic, his role as husband and father, and his willingness to fight hard for what he believed in, and speak truth to power, even if he knew he would be viewed negatively by those in power.

Doyle's passing will be a great loss to our family in so many ways, beyond the sorrow I am sure we all feel personally.

As we left the Minneapolis Airport last night, Pat caught a glimpse of the sun coming from behind a cloud, with those rays that people attribute to drawing water up from the ground. Learning this morning of the time of his death, those were, no doubt, his contrails.