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WORK TITLE: Keep Your Airspeed Up
WORK NOTES: with husband, Harold H. Brown
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1950
WEBSITE:
CITY: Port Clinton
STATE: OH
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marsha-bordner-4ab64115/ * https://www.airspeedup.com/ * http://www.thenews-messenger.com/story/news/local/2016/07/24/bordner-writes-book-husbands-tuskegee-airman-days/87502492/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1950; married Harold H. Brown.
EDUCATION:Bowling Green State University, B.A., M.A.; Ohio State University, Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, educator, and college administrator. Clark State Community College, Springfield, OH, faculty member and academic dean; Terra State Community College, president emerita, 2012—.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Marsha S. Bordner is a writer, educator, and college administrator. She has been a faculty member and academic dean at Clark State Community College in Springfield, Ohio. She retired in 2012 and is president emerita of Terra State Community College in Fremont, Ohio. Bordner holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Bowling Green State College and a Ph.D. in English from Ohio State University.
Bordner collaborated with her husband, Harold H. Brown, to tell the story of Brown’s experiences during World War II in Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman. They authors describe how brown entered the military flight program directly after high school. They recount in detail the rigorous training required of Brown and the other Tuskegee pilots. Brown includes accounts of his missions escorting bombers over the combat zones of Europe. He also tells of how he was shot down in Austria, nearly killed by an angry mob of locals, and taken prisoner by German forces. spending more than six weeks in a German prisoner of war camp.
The Tuskegee Airmen’s “success in escorting bombers during World War II—having one of the lowest loss records of all the escort fighter groups, and being in constant demand for their services by the allied bomber units—is unmatched by any other fighter group,” Bruce reported.
Another important aspect of the book is Brown and Bordner’s consideration of the racial issues that the pilots faced before, during, and after the war. The Tuskegee Airmen were a fully segregated group of pilots. “These pioneering aviators endured decades of unjust racial prejudice and mistreatment, even as war heroes returning home,” commented a writer on the Keep Your Airspeed Up Website. However, Brown believes that his and others’ exemplary service helped reverse racial attitudes in the military and set the stage for the Civil Rights movement in the decades following the war.
In assessing Keep Your Airspeed Up, Terri Schlichenmeyer, writing in Houston Style, commented: “Not only is it a warm and genuine biography, beginning even before author Harold H. Brown was born, but this book takes readers through a two-pronged fight, both in war and for civil rights, as told through quiet tales of heroes and those who created them.” A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book a “worthy addition to the Tuskegee Airmen canon.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Fremont News Messenger (Fremont, OH), July 24, 2016, Sheri Trusty, “Bordner Writes Book on Husband’s Tuskegee Airman Days,” profile of Marsha Bordner.
Houston Style, November 11, 2017, Terri Schlichenmeyer, review of Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman.
Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, OK), November 19, 2017, “Oklahoman Book Review: Keep Your Airspeed Up Tells Personal Story of One Tuskegee Airman.”
Publishers Weekly, June 5, 2017, review of Keep Your Airspeed Up, p. 45.
ONLINE
Bowling Green State University Website, http://www.bgsu.edu/ (April 8, 2018), profile of Marsha Bordner and Harold Brown.
Keep Your Airspeed Up Website, http://www.airspeedup.com (April 8, 2018).
Marsha Stanfield Bordner has always felt a passion for language—from getting a Ph.D. in English from Ohio State University, to serving as a faculty member at Clark State Community College in Springfield, Ohio, to becoming a college president at Terra State Community College. Most recently, she has put those skills to work in writing her husband’s story as a black man growing up in America, as one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, and as a college administrator. "Keep Your Air Speed Up" was published by the University of Alabama Press and has been available since August of 2017.
Marsha S. Bordner is president emeritus at Terra State Community College in Fremont, Ohio. She has spent more than thirty-five years committed to higher education, both as an educator and as an administrator. She earned her PhD in English from the Ohio State University.
'KEEP YOUR AIRSPEED UP'
Bowling Green State University / News / 2017 / November / 'Keep Your Airspeed Up'
Bordner book shares husband’s career as Tuskegee Airman, higher education leader
Tuskegee
Dr. Marsha Bordner has captured the remarkable career of her husband, Harold Brown, in “Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman.” The couple were scheduled to talk about the book at the Bowling Green Performing Arts Center, but the event has been postponed to a later date.
By Bonnie Blankinship
Drs. Marsha Bordner and Harold Brown began in very different places and years apart, but when their lives’ trajectories brought them together in 1987, they formed a romantic and professional bond that has lasted for 30 years. They have built strong legacies as pioneers in Ohio higher education and as role models for women, African-Americans and the power of hard work to achieve success.
Bordner, president emerita of Terra State Community College, and Brown have collaborated on a book about his service in the United States Army Air Force.
Tuskegee Plane
Published in August by the University of Alabama Press, “Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman” chronicles Brown’s experiences with the fabled World War II military fliers, the first African-American pilot squadron. It also shares his life after the war, as a career military man and later a leader in Ohio higher education and community service.
“As an English major, I know a good story when I hear one,” Bordner said of the decision to undertake writing the book. “What drove me and what was my passion was that this group of men changed the course of history; they were the leaders in civil rights long before the ’60s. I knew it was important not to lose their stories.
“This is entirely Harold’s tale, and I’m the weaver of the tale.”Tuskegee Plane
Bordner, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Bowling Green State University and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University, said, “I appreciate my BGSU education. It made me a better writer, editor and critical thinker.”
Brown, 93, was born in Minneapolis and fell in love with airplanes when he was in the sixth grade. He wanted to become a military pilot — an aspiration that was not available to black people at the time. He lived in a fairly integrated community for most of his young life.
“I didn’t know what segregation was in Minnesota,” he said. “We had Polish, Swedish, Jewish, Mexican kids in our small, K-6 school and our neighborhood. Then the Depression came and there was 35 percent unemployment. Suddenly with the war, things were working in my favor. Doors were wide open for youngsters to enlist in the military.”
His older brother was drafted in 1942, and his parents realized he would be next.
“At first only those with college degrees could train to become pilots, but soon so many were needed that they accepted people with only a high school degree,” Brown said. “I was 17 when I passed the exams and was accepted. The good news was, I would get to fight the war the way I wanted to.”
He enlisted and entered military flight training at Tuskegee, Alabama. Although it allowed him to achieve his dream of being a pilot, Tuskegee also placed him squarely in the middle of Southern anti-black discrimination whenever he ventured off base — a situation that would persist long after the war. Life outside the eventually integrated military did not keep up with life within it, Brown and his fellow airmen found.
But in his “Red Tail” squadron, as they were known for their planes’ signature markings, Brown was part of the crucial effort of escorting the heavy bombers deep into German territory on bombing raids.
“If it seems harsh and barbaric now, it was just the job we had to do to the best of our ability,” he said. “You accepted the fact that this was a war of survival. We were there to protect the bombers and get them up and then home safely.”
Today, among his numerous speaking engagements, Brown travels about with the Red Tail Squadron, an inspirational group of veterans who teach children and adults about the war and service to country. Their mottos are: “Aim high. Believe in yourself. Use your brain. Be ready to go. Never quit. Expect to win.”
Perhaps it was those directives that helped get him through the war and impelled him to accomplish all he has in his life. But sheer bravery must be among his qualities as well.
Brown is a three-time survivor of crash landings; only one of them truly frightened him, he said.
“In the first one and in the second one, I was under complete control. In the third one I was not in control,” he said.
That occurred when he crashed in the United States while he was an instructor on a training flight after the war. The pilot of the plane he was in and the pilot of a second plane unwittingly flew straight toward one another in heavy cloud cover until it was almost too late. Miraculously, one chose to turn his plane down and the other up, avoiding a head-on collision, but at 3,000 feet above the ground their planes clipped and they came down.
After all the perils he faced during the war, “I didn’t want to die so close to home!” Brown said.
The other two crashes occurred during the war. The first time, he managed to land on an abandoned airstrip after being hit my enemy fire.
“It was damaged, but my skills allowed me to bring the plane down safely,” Brown said.
Near the end of the war, he survived a second attack by parachuting out of his plane, only to be faced by an angry mob of citizens “who clearly wanted to kill me,” he said.
“We were trained to get as far away from the target as we could if we crashed,” he said. “After all our bombing of their territory, when you come floating down they get a little upset, to say the least,” he said wryly. “I was looking death in the face, and I said to myself, ‘You’re going to die at only 20.’”
He was saved by a local constable who walked him to another village where they barricaded themselves in a little pub. The constable even put a round in Brown’s rifle, and they stayed there until military police picked him up and took him to a prisoner of war camp.
“By then, the Germans had nothing,” Brown said. With the Allies closing in, the prisoners were marched and then taken by train and bus to other camps until the war finally ended and the prisoners were liberated.
They waited impatiently in Le Havre, France, at transition Camp Lucky Strike, where they were deloused, showered and given new uniforms before being shipped back to the States — where, despite their heroism in the war, the Tuskegee Airmen faced “the same old, same old segregated rules whenever we stepped off base,” Brown said.
After a 23-year career fighting in World War II, serving during the Korean War and representing his country in the Strategic Air Command, he left the military as a lieutenant colonel and earned master’s and doctoral degrees. Having many years’ experience teaching adults, he made a smooth transition to higher education, he said. He retired as vice president for academic affairs at Columbus State Community College.
Like Bordner, he was devoted to equality and making opportunities available to more people, beginning with what was then the technical college system.
Bordner and Brown’s writing collaborations go back to when they met. He came to serve as interim vice president for academic affairs at what became Clark State Community College in Springfield, Ohio, where she was an academic dean.
“So, technically, Harold was my boss,” she said humorously.
His charge was to facilitate the school’s transition from a technical institute to a community college, part of a statewide movement toward expanding the mission of its technical colleges in order to increase opportunities for students.
“Marsha worked with one other person on research and she was an outstanding writer,” Brown said. “With her Ph.D. and her English degree, she had the skills. We put together a five-chapter proposal for the school.”
They helped the school develop numerous degree programs that would articulate with state four-year colleges and provide a pathway to higher educational achievement, leading Clark State to be viewed as a model for other technical schools in making the transition to community college.
Both eventually moved on to other colleges, maintaining a long-distance relationship amid busy schedules until about 10 years ago, when they finally were able to settle together in Port Clinton, Ohio.
From the time they met, Bordner was intrigued by his stories of his war experiences and, after they married, began writing them down, recording his and his brother’s reminiscences and collecting memorabilia. Over their 30 years together she gathered “tons of information,” Brown said.
But as a busy college president, it was hard to find the time to do anything with it all.
“After I retired in 2012, it was time to write the book,” she said. “I had Harold’s stories and I added a fair amount of history on my own to place it all in its historical context. The stories are all his and the writing is all mine.”
Their paths might never have crossed but for their shared values. Bordner said that after obtaining her degrees, she almost went into social work but, believing “everyone should have a shot at higher education,” she chose that path instead.
“I felt that the two-year college system was a good fit for me. And working with students who had not had educational opportunities really touched my heart, and I saw that with hard work and support they could succeed.”
Bordner eventually rose to become president of Terra. Under her leadership, the college converted to the semester system; raised $2 million for a capital campaign; built a new skilled-trades center; completed a major renovation project that created a wing for music and the arts and another for nursing and allied health; and developed several new programs in health careers.
In June 2011, the college’s board of trustees renamed a recently renovated campus building the Marsha S. Bordner Arts and Health Technologies Center. She was BGSU’s 2012 August commencement speaker.
Bordner and Brown will be among the keynote speakers for the BGSU/Bowling Green “Beyond the Dream” events in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Their presentation will be held from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Jan. 12 at the Bowling Green Performing Arts Center at Bowling Green High School, 530 W. Poe Road.
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Bordner writes book on husband’s Tuskegee airman days
Sheri Trusty Published 1:04 p.m. ET July 24, 2016
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(Photo: Sheri Trusty/Correspondent)
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CATAWBA ISLAND - The intricacies of language, the spinning of tales and the perfect-pitch sound of a well-crafted phrase — those are the passions of Marsha Bordner. Her love of stories drove her to obtain a Ph.D. in English and, more recently, it inspired her to write a book — to tell the tale of her husband, Tuskegee airman Harold H. Brown.
Bordner signed a publishing contract with University of Alabama Press on July 15 for her book, tentatively titled, “Keep Your Air Speed Up, the Story of Tuskegee Airman Harold H. Brown.” It will be at least a year until the book’s release.
The book is the result of Bordner’s love of language and her love for her husband. Those two passions aroused an idea and birthed a book.
“People find their passion, and my passion has always been language and stories. So when he started telling me the stories of his life, it seemed to me it was a story that needed to be told,” Bordner said.
It was an unlikely match when the two met about 30 years ago. Differences in both age and race could have been obstacles in that time when vestiges still hung on of a belief in the separation of race in relationships. But she fell in love with Brown as she fell in love with his stories.
“We met at a college. He wasn’t famous then. He was an administrator, and he started telling me stories,” Bordner said.
Eventually, Bordner developed a desire to preserve those tales. She went from passive listener to active seeker.
“I started collecting things about Harold’s life, maybe 20 years ago,” she said.
During a trip to Mexico, Bordner persuaded stories out of Brown and his brother, Bubba, who also had served in World War II, but with a greatly different experience. While Brown was part of the distinguished World War II African-American pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, Bubba served just as faithfully, but with little respect or recognition.
“He was in South Africa, and they were called the donkey troops. So many of them were illiterate,” Bordner said. “Bubba is an integral part of the narrative. I think it’s interesting to see the contrasts when a war happens — who gets placed where and how that transpires.”
Contrast is an underlying theme in Bordner’s book, which touches on the distinction between black and white airmen in World War II and the disparity between the assignments given to African-American soldiers in the war — like Brown and his brother.
Although the book showcases the historical significance of the Tuskegee Airmen, it is also a narrative that tells of Brown’s personal experiences as a pilot.
“I had to decide — is the book history or personal narrative? It’s both, so I think that’s unique,” Bordner said. “There’s a lot about Harold in the plane and how he felt. I tried to pull it all together and retain his voice.”
After Bordner retired as president of Terra State Community College in 2012, she dove fervently into the research and writing of the book. Although she had heard all of Brown’s stories, she listened to them again and again, as he told them to local service clubs, school children and other pilots. The story’s audience, she found, brought out different details and encouraged a unique retelling.
“I listened to all the versions and picked out the best language,” she said.
Once she had gathered the stories chronologically, she befriended a historian at Maxwell Air Force Base who verified historical facts, and she spent hours listening to Brown explain the technical parts of flying until she was able to write them accurately in laymen’s terms.
“I learned so much. Part of the difficulty for me was, I’m not a scholar of World War II, and I’m not a pilot. I know nothing about airplanes, and I know nothing about being a black man in a segregated society,” she said.
She does, however, know what it is like to be a white woman in love with a black man in an intolerant society, although she found friendship and acceptance in Fremont. During a meet-and-greet reception introducing her as the new president of Terra, Bordner was worried about the community’s response to her relationship with Brown.
“What I found is that the people in Fremont and the surrounding areas are very patriotic. The whole idea of him being a veteran was very important to them, and then they found out he was a Tuskegee airmen after that. They welcomed us,” she said.
Contact correspondent Sheri Trusty atsheri.trusty@gmail.com or 419-639-0662.
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Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman
Publishers Weekly. 264.23 (June 5, 2017): p45.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman Harold H. Brown and Marsha S. Bordner. Univ. of Alabama, $29.95 (270p) ISBN 978-0-81731958-8
Brown, a Minneapolis-born nonagenarian, and Bordner, his wife, chronicle his life, particularly the three years he spent as a fighter pilot in the 332nd Fighter Group. This group, known as "the Tuskegee Airmen," battled the enemy abroad during WWII and racism at home. Brown's story runs from the first great migration through WWII to the civil rights era and into the 21st century. He completed the rigorous Tuskegee Army Flying School exam in 1942, straight out of high school. Brown recalls the pride that being a combat pilot in North Africa and Sicily gave him as well as his youthful arrogance, which caused him to get shot down over Austria. He became a POW before being liberated by Gen. Patton's forces. After stints at Air Force bases in the U.S. and Japan, he ended up at the Strategic Air Command, from which he retired in 1965. Later, Brown worked as an educator and college administrator. He poignantly recalls how he reconnected with his estranged brother, Bubba, and shares his admiration for Benjamin O. Davis Jr. and Daniel "Chappie "James Jr., two legendary black Army officers. Bordner finely records her husband's tale and it makes a worthy addition to the Tuskegee Airmen canon. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman." Publishers Weekly, 5 June 2017, p. 45. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495538365/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=12f3658b. Accessed 20 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495538365
“Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman” by Harold H. Brown with Marsha S. Bordner
Terri Schlichenmeyer | 11/10/2017, 1:36 p.m.
In things of great importance, you stand on the shoulders of giants. Those who came before you gave you a ...
“Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman” by Harold H. Brown with Marsha S. Bordner c.2017, University of Alabama Press $29.95 / $44.95 Canada 270 pages
1
In things of great importance, you stand on the shoulders of giants.
Those who came before you gave you a boost to get you where you are. They cleared your path and knocked aside obstacles. You stand on the shoulders of those giants even if, as in the new book “Keep Your Airspeed Up” by Harold H. Brown (with Marsha S. Bordner), the giant was once kinda scrawny.
Growing up in Minneapolis in the pre-World War II years, Harold H. Brown says that he and his brother “Bubba” were “mongrel dogs”: their maternal line was white-Jewish-Black; their paternal ancestors were African American and possibly Native American. Both boys were light-complexioned with straight hair, which Brown believes may have helped him later in his career.
Throughout his childhood and attendance at an integrated high school, he was fascinated with flying and so, when his brother enlisted in the military at the beginning of the War, Brown saw a way to achieve his own dream. Fully aware that a Black man in a mostly-white military wouldn’t have it easy, but believing that racial discrimination for Black pilots would “resolve itself,” he decided to join the Air Corps in mid-1942. At the exam, he was “the only black man taking the mental test… on that summer day,” and he was a quarter pound below weight on the physical test. “I flunked it!” he says, but by early 1943, he’d gained the needed ounces and had headed south to officially enlist in the Tuskegee Army Flying School.
The South presented a big learning curve for a Northern Black man. Brown experienced serious racial problems for the first time and though he “hated segregation,” he realized that being in a segregated Air Corps unit was perhaps better for a Black soldier; training was easier when there were more than just two or three black faces in a unit. And so he trained hard: many hours of flight-time, classes, and more.
“We knew that we were among a very select group of people,” he says.
“I never thought I would ever get shot down.”
“Keep Your Airspeed Up” is a surprise. A very nice one.
Not only is it a warm and genuine biography, beginning even before author Harold H. Brown was born, but this book takes readers through a two-pronged fight, both in war and for civil rights, as told through quiet tales of heroes and those who created them. Brown (with Marsha Bordner) is careful to give credit to the many who made him who he is; after those gentle shout-outs and heart-in-your-throat war stories, you’ll then be brought up-to-date with his current life. Remarkably, through this all, Brown’s story is told humbly, which will endear him to readers even more.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a World War II buff, this book is more than just that. There’s other history here, as well as a biography that will charm you plenty. If that seems like a winner for you, then “Keep Your Airspeed Up” is a pretty big book.
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Oklahoman book review: 'Keep Your Airspeed Up' tells personal story of one Tuskegee Airman
Oklahoman Published: November 19, 2017 5:00 AM CDT Updated: November 19, 2017 5:00 AM CDT
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“Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman” by Harold H. Brown with Marsha S. Bordner (University of Alabama Press, 270 pages, in stores)
In things of great importance, we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Those who came before us gave us a boost to get where we are today. They cleared our path and knocked aside obstacles. We stand on those shoulders even if they weren't always strong, if they started out scrawny.
That's one of the messages Harold H. Brown teaches in "Keep Your Airspeed Up."
Growing up in Minneapolis in the pre-World War II years, Brown writes, he and his brother “Bubba” were “mongrel dogs”: Their maternal line was white-Jewish-Black, and their paternal ancestors were African American and possibly Native American.
Both boys were light-complexioned with straight hair, which Brown believes may have helped him later in his career.
Throughout his childhood and attendance at an integrated high school, he was fascinated with flying. When his brother enlisted in the military at the beginning of the war, Brown saw a way to achieve his own dream.
Fully aware that a black man in a mostly-white military wouldn't have it easy, but believing that racial discrimination for black pilots would “resolve itself,” he decided to join the Air Corps in mid-1942.
At the exam, he was “the only black man taking the mental test ... on that summer day,” and he was a quarter pound below weight on the physical test.
“I flunked it!” he writes, but by early 1943, he gained the needed weight and headed south to enlist officially in the Tuskegee Army Flying School.
The south presented a big learning curve for a northern black man. Brown experienced serious racial problems for the first time, and though he “hated segregation,” he realized that being in a segregated Air Corps unit was perhaps better for a black soldier at that particular time; training was easier when there were more than just two or three black faces in a unit. And so he trained hard: many hours of flight-time, classes and more.
“We knew that we were among a very select group of people,” he says. “I never thought I would ever get shot down.”
“Keep Your Airspeed Up” is a surprise. A very nice one.
Not only is it a warm and genuine autobiography, but it also takes readers through a two-pronged fight, both in war and for civil rights, as told through quiet tales of heroes. Brown (with Marsha Bordner) is careful to give credit to the many who made him who he is; after those gentle shout-outs and heart-in-your-throat war stories, you'll then be brought up-to-date with his current life. Brown's story is told humbly, which will endear him to readers even more.
Even if you don't consider yourself a World War II buff, this book isn't just about the military. There's other history here, as well as a life story that will charm you plenty. If that seems like a winner for you, then “Keep Your Airspeed Up” is a pretty big book.
— Terri Schlichenmeyer, for The Oklahoman