 Imagine your young man who favors art but his country asked him to become a fighter pilot because the nation is a war. Then you're asked to bond Hawaii. This is a true story never told before here on figments the power of imagination. I'm think tech Hawaii. I'm really excited about today because I'm going to have an elderly gentleman who has quite a story to tell. And, as I said, it hasn't been told before. I'm Dan big leaf, big, and I'm the host of pigments bar of imagination. We try to entertain and inspire and I suspect we'll do both stay with a really great story about this fighter pilot artist turn fighter pilot turned artist. So I actually have a picture. First, let me do the title site because I took the time to make it on PowerPoint. My guest is Lieutenant Colonel retired Bob Kenai, US Air Force, I bet she thought he was from Japan. I do have a picture of Kenai's airplane. When he was asked to bomb Hawaii. That might not be it. Let me welcome Bob Kenai, Kenai, Aloha. Was that your was that your bird there Kenai that ahead. I think mine was pretty ugly but not that ugly. No, that wasn't it. So, Kenai was my boss in the 426 killer claws claw claw claw claw. And a great mentor he was the squadron commander when I was an ops officer much of what I learned about leadership. I learned from Kenai. And he's truly got a unique story of being an Air Force fighter pilot with a pension for art. We're going to look at both of those. I'm sorry about being asked to bomb Hawaii because he was asked to bomb Hawaii with live bombs and not on a practice range. You're not going to believe this one. Kenai you send me a bunch of pictures pictures of pictures and your pictures from your career so I put together this little montage, I think we call it. Yeah, I love this because it shows you as a cadet at Texas A&M or student that maybe you recall, then is it and you look like somebody who would give underclassmen a real hard time. Then as a student in pilot training and all of us who went through pilot training remember, you're just trying to get through man, stay out of the way stay out of the target. Keep your lunch down don't bomb it, you know a little stuff like that. And then maybe year and half later in Southeast Asia is a seven fighter pilot and I would submit that you're a different person in many ways in each of those pictures. What do you think. Oh yeah. Yes. You know, first of all, I was probably I'm 72 years old and probably one of the younger people you'll meet who actually had combat time in Southeast Asia because I went right through four years of college and right into pilot training and then right into well after survival schools and then a seven school that went right to Southeast Asia and still didn't get there until the last month of the air war in Southeast Asia. So yeah, that was that was quite a change. And that picture of me as a cadet I actually had I was a squadron commander of about 80 people and that was more a responsibility that I had until I was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. So that was a that was quite a thing. And I did have a sword, which my son actually carried he actually went through the same squadron as I did he has a picture looking very much like that because the uniform didn't change much at all. And then you're in pilot training your hero shot. And then yes, and that was in the war and I was really lucky I went through pilot training. I was lucky for when I made my choices to have finished high enough in the class to get the airplane I wanted, which was a single seat airplane, which, you know, I had a hard time keep my lunch down and T 37 tonight desperately wanted to get the other person out of my plane so I was so happy to get a seven. Yeah, show some a sevens here if we can to show the svelte. Okay, stout. Yes, little, but single seat and that's key. Yes, the short little ugly fellow we called it fellow. And you see the tiger teeth on those planes as a squadron artiste I was charged, but putting those on the plane correctly and I had helpers and stencils and stuff that was one of my job to squatter artiste. But yeah, we were those airplane we were stationed at where we were TD wide and barbers point Hawaii in 1975 76 on an exercise. And we actually were flying alive. A live firepower demonstration continuously on the big island in the satellite show for the army and other folks right. Let me explain what that means to. Okay. Yeah, so it's dropping real bombs and napalm probably and shooting rockets and shooting the ground gun it's good training in a demanding environment, but I'll go back a little bit to the seven. It's a single seat airplane. It's our first really computer assisted bombing there's a lot manual to it but but you've got get more help. It's a high tech fighter doesn't doesn't look like it. It is single seat so I'm going to lead you back to that picture in Southeast Asia becoming a single seat fighter pilot in combat is something that almost everybody else wouldn't want to do, but it's like us and yells like us who want to fly fighters, what would rather be no other place, agree or disagree. I agree. I agree. And it was a wonderful airplane. I'll tell you was it wasn't the prettiest airplane. If you went to the flight line with your girlfriend, you might point to another airplane. That's that's like this one over here the very beautiful looking eagle. You might say that's my we flew together that we flew together. I like to for 15 years in the Air Force, but the a seven was beautiful in some way it was it had a kind of a small computer by today's standards you're not much more than a Tari. But you got to keep in mind that we went to the moon with a 4k computer. Yeah, and the a seven had just a fantastic avionics way it was a game changer in its way. We had a inertial navigation system tied in with to the computer and had a Doppler system up to gate that update that so you always knew where you were. And one of the ways you knew where you were was we had a projected map display. Excellent little round scope there that continuously showed where you were on a map, which is something I really wish we'd had in the eagle, but that's absolutely because we would not have gotten lost as much as we did. And it was years until they eventually and later models of the 15 had a poor person's version of that. Nothing like the Wild Map display in the in the slough and it and it what you're right it was not attractive. It was the airplane I wanted to fly out of pilot training keen I think I've told you this for two reasons one it was high tech more importantly. Single seat and my social skills are ideally suited to being alone. That was nothing to do with but but I knew I could, you know, if I if I was single seat I'd be flying with my best friend. That was a great airplane unfortunately it when I graduated from pilot training they weren't available because there were engine problems. It was not overpowered. Was it. No, that was not we had we had what we have actually upgraded from the Navy airplane we put a TF 41 Allison engine in it, which produce more thrust but still on a hot day with as much stuff as we carry. The airplane weighed about 23,000 pounds and we could carry 23,000 pounds with the bombs and fuel and rockets and all this kind of stuff and with that load, it was really an adventure getting off the runway. So was it what it didn't have an afterburner but it could fly around with this fan jet fan engine, which was something that most fighter jets back in those days were turbo jets this was a fan jet was very efficient we could fire out at 450 plus all day at low altitude 450 500 miles an hour. The, and I your second combat sort of you almost didn't get it airborne. Oh yeah. Right. I used all but 300 I used all but 300 feet of the runway carot air base, I had a load of rockets and cluster bomb units and tanks, and about two thirds into my takeoff role. I had rocket pods, which has what's what they call a frangible nose cone just exploded and it became flat flight drag and it slew me to the right. And I had some time to think about what's going to happen next, because I wasn't accelerating. My takeoff speed was about 100. Well, 200 miles an hour was put that way. And I could see the end of the runway coming up and my options were limited I could either jettison everything, or I could eject, or I could just. That was really about the or I could punch everything off in which case all that ordinance is going to be flying in formation if you down the runway. So I barely I did make it off the runway in the last 300 feet. I disappeared over the horizon people were looking for smoke out there. And basically I managed to just barely keep the airplane airborne and ground effect until I got enough airspeed to join my leader who wondered where the heck I was at this point. And then we continued on down to Cambodia to do our mission to do your mission so people might think you must have been terrified. I'm going to answer for you. Just so we can say, you're not you're too busy to be terrified. In fact, if it does kill you, you know, you're going to be a flaming mess in the on the terrain that there's there is a second where you actually are terrified. But once you fly out of it. I did that. Pretty cool. Yes, you get kind of tense stuff a little bit but you're you are thinking fairly fast I was used to call cutting buttonholes in my seat cushion. Those of you with imagination know what I'm talking about here. Right. So, let's get back to bombing Hawaii which you. Actually, we're asked to do. I mean, you and I, as we've done many times in the past, could talk about flying for hours, weeks, months, years. Yes, probably do that at our little clock, clock, clock reunion here coming up in November. So there you are. You've survived the Southeast Asia war. You're deployed to Hawaii. You're flying show formations that are probably illegal off white key key, you got a bomb with your then fiance's name, I think. Okay, now you're just doing firepower demos and live in large and go in sailing and having life and they asked you to bomb. The volcano on the big island. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yes, we were doing this far back. Well, the, we were, we had a briefing with some geologists from Hawaii, they came in with some air, some Air Force brass and actually some Navy brass. And they said, they told us that they had rem activity on monoloa, which they've had before. And it was creating these lava tunnels that were slowly moving toward the city of Hilo. And, and they said, well, they wanted to know if we could actually bomb the sides of these things and divert the lava flow, these tubes are really large and a very slow moving. And we said, yeah, we can do that. And they basically tested us, they put some panels on the ground and we bomb those with BDU 33s, which is a little 25 pounds practice. And we actually hit the targets, we were good at that. So they said, Oh yeah, we trust you now to hit the sides of the volcano. So the size of the tube. So they would basically put these big, about 25 foot white panels on the sides of the lava tubes. And they told us to have at it. We took off with a pick. I'm sorry. Well, I want to point out to show this old airplane again, this is a B five a. This was not the first time this had happened. The Army Air Force Air Corps at the time in 1935 had tried this with smaller bombs and a lot less accuracy. They did it again in 1942 when it was an emergency. Again, the lava flows, but in 1976 it was kind of an experiment. Well, they didn't express it that way to us. They said it was real lava flow that was coming down and they put the panels out for us to bomb on the sides of the lava flow. Now, if you see the reports that they've been published since it makes it sound like it was an experiment, that's not what they were telling us. They were telling us these were real flows. And they also said we were successful at it. We actually crushed the sides of some of these tubes. We made with these 2000 pound bombs and made about 100 foot craters in the side of them. And we also bombed or call spatter cones, which are little, little mini volcanoes that come out the side of the volcano. So we dropped over a period of about a week. We dropped 36 of these two granders. And the Hawaii geologists told us we had to keep this to ourselves. They asked to be quiet. And I can't imagine that this was going on. And people knew about it. It wouldn't be on the front page of the Honolulu Star Advertiser, whatever newspaper you have. As far as I can tell it wasn't. And we just showed an A7 of 2000 pounder, a little bomb 101 folks. Yeah, both dropped 500 pound bombs. They're kind of impressive, especially if you're near where they hit. A 2000 pounder is really different. I wouldn't say it's a small nook, but it's a big explosion. So the notion that you're going to drop and you guys eventually drop 36 of these 2000 pounders on the volcano. Can you imagine the meeting where they decided to ask the Air Force to do this? Yeah, yeah, I got an idea. Let's go bomb the volcano. What happened? I don't know how it came down the chain of command. I was just a guy told to go out and do it. And it was a fun time. Dropping a two grander off your airplane. You really get quite a bit of lift when those things goes off. Plus you can see it. It's so big you can see it fly right down to where it hits. Pretty exciting stuff. Plus it makes about a 2000 foot plume up into the air. So how we keep the secret from people I really don't know. But they did a good job because you really didn't hear much about it anywhere. And it was kind of sad for us. Yeah, you wanted to be the heroes of Hilo, right? Because you'd say. We thought we might at least get a free drink out of it at the bar. Nope. And if you folks, if you do an internet search, as I did in preparation for today's episode, of course, you'll find almost nothing. I found a report, an academic style report from a US geologist, a government geologist and somebody headquarters Pacific Air Forces in 1980. There's no trace of this. There's plenty about the 1935 bombings, the 1942 bombings, but somehow they, they kept it quiet. And to seek to do this again, which I think is unlikely given the paperwork, let's say that would have to be done to get approval. I don't think they'd keep it secret. So it worked, but we probably won't do it again unless there's a real emergency like is depicted in the Korean movie. Which is the North Korean and South Korean forces joining together to stop a volcano at the North Korea China border. I just learned about that movie today. So let me take a very quick break and tell you that you can find the episodes from previous editions of figments bar imagination and pigments on reality show I did for about a year. At these QR codes so feel free to scan that we'll leave it up there long enough. And of course I will be back next in two weeks with another show I'm not sure what it will be probably about flying because it seems to be pretty popular. Hey, so, as I said I worked for Kenai and he's wanted. He was a tremendous mentor. But we knew he had artistic talent, because we had paintings in the squadron that he had done. And Bob I always thought that that you just, you know you always did art but it's far it's a far more exquisite evolution than that. And I think that's how you, how you got to be an artist as a squadron artist and then a real artist and here's a picture that was in the squadron that Bob and I served in together with his daughter Katie who now serves as a Foreign Service Officer in the US State Department. Thank you for your service Katie. Go ahead, don't tell me how this evolved as the squadron artist turned real artist. And then, and then later I started to paint especially when I got into some of the fighter squads of that they needed some aviation art on the wall so I started doing that. In fact, when I was at Langley in 1976 when the first wing started up there and I had one of the Bitburg Squadron Commanders Fred Fitzsimmons came through and saw some of my paintings and said, Did you do this? And he said, Yes, I need a squadron artist. And he got me orders within a week to go to Bitburg. He didn't say, I need a really good pilot. But you were a good pilot and I would just point out, you know that every every good fighter squadron, as we both know, has a unique collection of talent. And there are a few things you need, you need an artist. You need to make sure the bar is nice wood. Thanks Doc Doolittle. He was not a pilot, but Doc gave us the, you need a piano, must have a piano player. We'll see a piano player, Dave Luens in Arizona. And, and so on you've got to have this collection of talent you have to have, you want to win the golf tournament you have to have one good golfer that's exactly why we hired Smuddy Smith in the squadron. He's an incredible fighter pilot. But this collection of talent makes a good squadron great. So, and I have to say, I have to say, I was a squad commander and also the squadron artist and you were the option. We had the best fighter squad that I have ever been. It was amazing. We had the most amazing group of people who work together really well. And we not only taught those guys how to be good at 15 pilots. We showed them what a fighter squad is supposed to look like. And I really think that a lot of those guys went on and later said to them so, if I ever get to be a squatter commander, I want it to look like this because we had such a great team and you were such a great opposite. She made it really easy for me to do my job. It's fantastic. And I was really, really, really proud of your climb up the ladder. So, you did a bunch of art throughout your military career. And that includes later at their, here's an A7 with artistic license based on volcano bombing because it has to mark 84s on each wing. And it's the wrong landscape that's from Hawaii as opposed to the big island. But that's a pretty, you know, in the past. And by not, we had not had this conversation. That's a pretty simple painting. You know, it's kind of an airplane and the landscape and I'm colorblind as you may or may not recall. But, but I think it looks okay but what later after you work for the airlines, you like to say you work for a nonprofit company. Your paintings are more refined even when they're airplanes and I'm showing this because this is a painting of my jet in combat that we'll get to there. And folks, let me unbler my background here. And you'll see it behind me if that's the painting above my head there. So that's more sophisticated, frankly, how did that evolution become a real artist happen. Well, like you said, I had a relatively perfect career in the Air Force has been 20 years just flying single seat fighters. And when I finally got out in 1991, I had a lot of time on my hands like three or four days a week off. And I decided, among a lot of other things, I was going to make a deep dive into art and learn how to do it. So I started, I got some books on the way the old masters learned and the way the old masters learned was painting copies of old masters. So I started making reproductions of things, a lot of bad forgeries of other people's pictures. But I learned a lot of things like I kind of prime canvases and how to do underpainting. Oil painting takes several layers. It's a lot of patience. And that picture, that picture, I think it's a really nice picture that it has a lot of cool elements in it, including that reflection of the afterburner, you know, the kind of a hazy day that you have it. Aviano quite a bit of the time and the ordinance you're taking off with it really has a sense of purpose, I think. And I had to say also big for people who don't know it. Dan Leif was the wing commander there as a one-star general, commanding the Air Force's largest composite wing in a very righteous exercise called Allied Force. It was 1999. And it was one of the most successful uses of air power in Air Force history. And it was basically to keep the public of Yugoslavia from committing genocide against the Kosovo Albanians. And it was so successful. Very few civilians got hurt. Almost nobody on our side got hurt. It was over in a couple of months. It turned the government over. And the reason you don't know about it is it was so successful that people don't remember it. It seems all we remember is our failures. So I think that would be the dream of every fighter pilot is to be in that position to be that wing commander taken off and leading those people on that on that mission. It was the easiest job I ever had because I had people like us working for me in a righteous cause. And I have the example that you'd provided. So, Oh, thank you. But let's get back to art. And so you, I love that painting as well. I've got my jacket behind me on the chair that you painted a claw eagle on and that I received at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum. My retirement roast. I got what quick aside on that an army general officer I retired as a three star. I don't believe it either came to me afterwards because it was a real roast. And he said, Big, our Air Force parties always like this. I hope so. So anyway, you, you progress technically and one of the paintings you sent me as an example example is this photo of apples, and that looks like an exercise in artistic perfection to me. Anyway, was this like practice and getting it as, as perfect as you can? Yes, it's just good example of still lifes. I've been doing a lot of very, very finely detailed still lifes on Masonite board, which is quite takes quite a bit of patience, but I've got, I've got a whole wrap of these kind of things around that. Yeah. That took me about like six, seven hours to knock that out and it takes several layers and it's a little bit of finesse. Six or seven hours it wouldn't take. Well, I couldn't do it. It wouldn't take me a certain time. You also you talked about the masters and copying them not counterfeiting but practicing this one because of both its striking beauty and the story behind it intrigue me because they reflect you as, as I know you dealt a little bit about this painting, please. Yeah, this is called the, this is called the fighting Temeraire being towed to be broken up. It's actually one of the most famous pictures that you'll find in England. It is, it's very evocative as an artist might say. What it is, this airplane, this ship, the Temeraire was in the Battle of Trafalgar, and it was a hero ship and actually had subdued two friendships on either side of it pounded them in the submission. And, and later, it was later of course decommissioned and became kind of a Hulk. And what this picture, the painter, the guy who actually did the original JMW Turner, England's greatest landscape artist, he actually painted this picture. The idea was, here you have this ghost ship being towed up the Thames River by this new fangled steam machine to be broken up. And really what it represents at the time was all of the old soldiers of the Napoleonic Wars that were kicking off just like our World War two veterans are and, and even our Vietnam veterans are nowadays so something I think you and I can relate to a little bit. And, and you paint a lot for other folks you don't. Maybe you make some money. We have your website. If you look for Bob Keeney fine art on Facebook you can find it there and I think we've shown the website during the show but you paint for other people for example I went into a Chilean defense school office for the Air Force two star was in charge made a picture of a ship behind him and I said dude. You're a fighter pilot man, I'm going to have a ship and Keeney graciously painted a beautiful picture of a Chilean f 16 like my friend Eduardo man phone. So you give a lot of yourself in your artwork. And that's pretty cool. At one more picture I think of your nurse, as we call her. Yes, bar. You guys are a great team. And I can't wait to see in November when we have our little reunion. There, there's so much that we could talk about, not just from what we've talked about already but from our time together. Let me ask you what your next pigment is I tend to close with your next pigment what's the next thing you want to do could be the next painting could be the next getting, getting over some recent surgery and starting to ride your bike again what what's next on Bob Keeney's list. The next thing for me is learning to walk again. I just had my right hip replaced I'm getting around with the cane I've been spoiled by my, my nurse wife for for about five weeks now so I'm hoping to get better with that. She's anxious for your recovery as you are. Yes. So Smurf asked me to make a print for the reunion and I'm putting that together I'm thinking of doing about any original print for this painting for this for this November reunion which would be a lot of fun. 426 killer claw claw claw. Thanks. Thanks for everything I'll never thank you enough for all the things you gave me in terms of lessons and one of the things that you taught me when I became your ops officer suddenly we both went into this job as commander and ops officer. A little notice where things that you're saying you remember is a little five year old I think he and I shared on imagine effective leadership episode of pigments you can find it on the playlist. And she is a leadership guru, I rewatched that episode folks if you haven't seen it go see it again, but she talked about things that make us happy. You're thinking, having a purpose and mastering something. So that's really the key to happiness and you know you've connected with the world and with people through your art with the altruistic purpose and you've really mastered it so what would figure something like that except I have no artistic talents so I just say, continue your lifelong growth. You're never done. Keep growing. Keep trying. It's worth it. Okay, thanks so much. I'll see you in November. Thank you for great being on your, your show. Okay and thanks to think tech Hawaii a great nonprofit corporation here in Hawaii that makes it possible for citizen journalists like yours truly to bring you big events the power of imagination and 30 other shows every week. So please donate to think tech Hawaii and keep us on the air. Thank you so much for watching think tech Hawaii. 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