Candy Bomber Targets Baghdad

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The children of Baghdad probably don’t expect anything good to drop out of the sky on them these days but a retired Air Force colonel wants to change that. Col. Gail Halvorsen wants to reprise the 1948 flight over Berlin that earned him the nickname the Candy Bomber. Halvorsen gave the German kids something to look up to when he dropped gum and chocolate, suspended from handkerchief parachutes, from his Berlin Airlift transport. He’s visited other war-torn regions after that and last made a drop of chocolate bars over Bosnia in 1994. He wants Baghdad to be next. “I’d give my right arm to do it,” he told the Associated Press. Halvorsen has already been in touch with his friends in the Air Force to ask if he can make a candy drop. “I’m planning on how to do that when the dust clears,” said Halvorsen, who’s 82. Halvorsen didn’t ask for permission in 1948 and it almost got him court-martialed. But he said he’s glad he did it because it showed him how a simple act of kindness can overshadow the horrors of war. “They’ve been mistreated so long …” he said. “The bottom line is it would lift their spirits.” He said the candy drop would also be tangible evidence that the U.S. cares for the Iraqi people. “That makes all the difference in the world on attitude,” he said.

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