The book about the man Leonardo of the town of Vinci is a look inside brilliance that is quite exhausting in the detail. It takes work to realize such potential. Your realization builds how much sweat and effort and time is involved. Leonardo put such attention to detail into everything he did. Most of us would have shrugged at the problem, long since have given up walking around it and studying it from every possible angle. To create a machine that would soar in the sky like a bird, it would likely be built along those lines.



Any one of so many doodles of his later would change the world. A protective larger suit of armor that could accommodate several warriors did not come until Sir Winston Churchill saw the design of Leonardo in an ancient book, and soon British tanks were coming over the hills in France. And flying machines above looking much like some early sketches by a man of the town of Vinci.

And one of the most touching parts of this story is that this magnificent book was presented to me by the children of a fine man named John Coppinger who had loaned it to me. Upon his death, I returned it, and they insisted John would want me to keep it, as a last bond. Which I felt humbled for. As John had a disciplined, wise mind even into his 80's. And this old man in the coffee shop would tell me, speaking of Winston Churchill, about his own role in World War Two.

John was the navigator for his aircraft, and would spot where firing guns on the ground could reach, their tracer bullets leaving a burning trail in the sky. John survived, as did his crew, because he would drive his crew crazy as he had the aircraft directed north along the Dutch coast, while many aircraft headed straight over France. Many of those never returned.

But like an ancient warrior John was in the Observe state in his mind. The further up the Dutch coast, he noticed tracer bullets falling into the sea and leaving a gap between two of the Frisian Islands just off the coast. It was here, he would hear shouts of "finally" as he would direct the pilot to fly that very narrow gap between where the tracer bullets were falling into the sea. John felt his efforts had never really been appreciated by the crew, who were all so get on with the mission.

Only then could John continue to think like Leonardo, Orient them towards to the target and away from gunfire. Decide while the aircraft banked and shuddered at the nearby explosions, and act on their knowledge. And then, it was vital to not simply feel, as the ret of the crew did when the bombs were gone, mission accomplished.

Well not, really, until our wheels touch down back on English soil. And John would sweat more on the war back home than coming in while his buddies slapped him on the back and said piece of cake, it is done. Well, not quite yet. That is, if you think like Leonardo. And John, I believe we shall share another discussion, where you talk and I learn, some day under a Heavenly sky. Thanks, and be eternally the quiet hero you are, and they never realized. Well, some did. Life well lived, John. Thanks from us all.