A farm boy in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan grows up close to the earth. Soil, rocks, crops, and animals dominate life on a farm. Small wonder, then, that such a boy might dream of escaping the small patch of ground he knew, lifting off the earth on wings, and flying away on adventures.

No one knows how Roger Thorpe first grew interested in aviation. As a child in the U.P. during the 1930s, flying must have seemed a glamorous, daring feat performed by brave souls far away. Perhaps it was the Second World War, with its dogfights and heroic bombing raids that inspired him. Perhaps it was barnstormers at local fairs. Something sparked in him an interest in flight.

After medical school, Roger joined the United States Air Force. At the 1607th USAF Hospital Dover Air Force Base, he served as Aviation Medical Examiner, Flight Surgeon and Chief of Aviation Medicine. In those roles he investigated the effects of high-performance flight on fliers. He was one of the earliest non-pilots to break the sound barrier. He studied the ways sudden decompression rapidly decimated a flight crew?€™s performance. He flew to Canada and Greenland and South America and Europe - lands few boys from the U.P. would ever have dreamed of visiting.

While at Dover Air Force Base, Roger and three other officers pulled a flier from the burning wreckage of his downed F-86H. The official commendation reads:

This is to certify that
The President of the United States of America
Authorized by Act of Congress July 2, 1926
Has Awarded THE SOLDIER'S MEDAL to
Captain Roger G. Thorpe, United States Air Force for
Heroism near Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, 25 September 1958
Given Under My Hand and in the City of Washington
This 27th day of March 1959

The signatures are faded after 60 years, but one is clearly James H Douglas, Secretary of the Air Force, and the other appears to be J L Tass.

During his time in the Air Force Roger joined the base flight club and earned his private pilot?€™s license. Now he was flying, on his own. He loved to take friends and family up with him so they, too, could get a taste of the joy of defying gravity.

After the Air Force, Roger and his wife, Eileen, entered service as medical missionaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While there were no planes for him to rent in the Congo, he came to rely on the intrepid bush pilots of Missionary Aviation Fellowship for transportation to remote hospitals and clinics. Some of those landing strips were little more than patches of dirt carved out of the forest, and he appreciated the skill of the MAF pilots. He enjoyed scanning the gauges from the right-hand seat to remind himself of the rhythms of piloting an aircraft.

When it became clear that he would spend the remainder of his active career in the Congo, Roger reluctantly gave up his pilot's license. His love of aviation, though, never faded. He loved flying stories, flying magazines, air shows, air and space museums, and even flying commercially. He always wanted to know the type of aircraft he was in, the runways used for take-off and landing, and the route to the destination. He would be proud to know that his memory is preserved on the Wall of Honor at National Air and Space Museum.