Martin Fox

Martin Howard Fox, a retired US Air Force colonel, died peacefully April 30, 2015. He was 86. Known to one and all as Marty, he was a patriot, a loyal family man and the consummate storyteller. His life, front-loaded with adventure, took him through three wars – the Korean conflict, the Cold War and Vietnam. He literally lived history, was afraid of nothing, and swore better than anyone on the planet. His Alzheimer’s disease cut him off from friends and acquaintances in the final years of his life, but he loved more than anything to be surrounded by people. Marty was born at home in McCook, Nebraska on Oct. 12, 1928 to Ralph Leroy Fox, and Faye McHale. He was the oldest of six children and dearly loved his brothers and sisters: Dennis, Shirley, Edgar Dean, Arnie, Sandy and Marilyn. Marty was truly a citizen of all the United States, moving with his family to Bristol, Connecticut where he was a high school football star. He dropped out of the University of Connecticut to join the Army Air Corps and follow his dream of flying. An accomplished pilot, Marty wanted to become an Air Force pilot but football injuries prevented that and he became a navigator. After that he said that any monkey could fly a plane but that it took real brains to be a navigator. He raced cars, loved Buicks, and collected cool blondes. Although he never drank much – he said he was a mean drunk and didn’t like that aspect of himself – he hit the party circuit whenever he could. He taught his kids how to drive and how to curse properly, made sure his daughters could rebuild a carburetor and drive a stick shift and that his son could shoot. But he gave up hunting when Margaret and the kids cried pointed out just how cute deer and geese can be. Marty’s Air Force career started hard and fast, in Korea. The young, idealist worked in air rescue, jumping out of seaplanes and helicopters to rescue downed pilots before they succumbed to cold water, sharks or enemy fire. It was dangerous and horrific work, but Marty managed to keep his sense of humor through it all. One year, he sent a picture of himself in front of a bullet-riddled wall to his parents. “They missed,” he scrawled. Nurses were his heroes. Marty’s respect for them started when the female nurses he worked with, forbidden to fly in the aircraft but frustrated at the bad shape their patients came back in, disguised themselves as men so they could deliver immediate first aid. Marty spent time in Japan, picking up just enough Japanese to terrorize waitresses at Japanese restaurants for the rest of his life, before returning stateside to Harlingen AFB in south Texas. There, on a blind date, he met Margaret Reynolds, the love of his life, whom he married in 1958. Then the Cold War phase of his career started and the two, with their growing family, ping-ponged across the western United States as Marty trained in all the ways to outwit the Soviet enemies of the era. Their children Nick, Margaret (Midge) and Marta learned how to change schools, houses and friends with the grace any military brat can appreciate. Marty lived the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction, spending days airborne in bombers kept aloft to survive any enemy attack on the US and deliver an equally lethal counter-strike. He and Margaret had a plan for her to escape with the kids to the mountains in case the worst happened, and the family station wagon was kept packed with supplies. Luckily, code words and escape were never needed, but Margaret endured the uncertainty when he’d disappear into radio silence. He mastered navigation of B-47s and B-52s, touring the beautiful California countryside at March AFB and Beale AFB, where he supported the then top-secret SR-71 Blackbird spy planes. His career took Marty and his family to Wethersfield AFB in southeast England, where they set up house in a 500-year-old cottage and embraced English eccentricity, hobnobbing with lords and ladies and collecting antiques. But his adored mother Faye died while he was overseas, and Marty never quite got over the guilt of being so far away when she passed away so young. The Air Force always came first, but possibly the hardest time for the family came when Marty was posted to Vietnam for a year. He and Margaret bought their first house, in Lakewood, Colorado, near his father and siblings and he headed off to Phan Rang air base. Despite the hardship and fear, Marty sent a steady stream of amusing post cards to the kids and connected via amateur radio enthusiasts for chats. Vietnam also provided Marty with material for his stories. He knew how to build suspense and, with impeccable timing, slip the punch line in at the perfect moment. One of his favorites was about Charlie the python. “We were headed over to this little burger stand for a cheeseburger,” he would recall. “We had to make our way through some trees, and I stepped over a fire hose. I remember wondering what the hell a fire hose was doing there in the jungle. When we reached the stand, Jack told me I had to buy two burgers. ‘Why two?’ I asked. ‘One for you, and one for Charlie,’ Bob told me. ‘Who the hell’s Charlie?’ I demanded. Then I turned around and there was Charlie. What I thought was a fire hose was in fact a 20-foot-long python. He wanted his cheeseburger. I gave it to him.” Marty returned safely from Vietnam and he rarely if ever spoke of his wartime experiences. He eschewed talk of war heroes, refused to display his many medals and said a country that worshiped the military invited war for the sake of war. Marty’s postings brought the family on a steady path eastwards, for training at Richards Gebaur near Kansas City and then to Dover, Delaware to handle C-5s, the then-new, giant cargo jets, and C-141s. There he dropped off his son, Nick, who joined the Air Force himself after graduating from high school. Marty, by then a lieutenant colonel, was president of the Officer’s Club at Dover and he and Margaret perfected their cocktail party skills. They loved to entertain and excelled at it, often hosting officers from foreign countries, including a Saudi prince. But they also rescued young airmen away from home for the first time at holidays, or joined the enlisted men and women in the mess halls at Thanksgiving. The family nearly got their reward with a posting to beachfront Eglin AFB in Florida, but Marty ruined it for everyone by getting one more promotion, to full colonel, and they headed to Charleston, SC instead. There the family made do with golden sandy beaches and historic plantations and Midge left the nest for college. Marty ended his career at Scott AFB outside St. Louis, making the 30-year mark. Their youngest, Marta, graduated from high school there but stayed close by for the rest of their lives, moving with them in retirement and tending to both to the very end as their health declined. Marty always called her his angel, and she and her husband Rich Nelson made sure he was comfortable, supported and never alone. He and Margaret retired in their beloved Colorado and built their dream home facing the foothills. It was a labor of love, and Marty indulged in another favorite hobby – helping the down-and-out – plucking a homeless veteran named Pete to help him build the house, by hand, to specification. Marty reveled in visiting auctions for just the right tiles or the perfect chandelier. There, the two spent the last 30 years of their lives together. Marty immersed himself in Republican Party politics, the local community and in selling products from security devices to cosmetics and health supplements. More than anything, he loved to dispense wise advice to anyone who’d seek it. He was there when his father Ralph died of emphysema, a small comfort but an important one for a man who spent too much time away from loved ones. Marty was devastated when Margaret was diagnosed with lung cancer. He cared for her lovingly and with a devotion that would have made his nurse heroines proud. He made sure she saw their 50th wedding anniversary and his 80th birthday. He kept her well fed and insisted that she die at home, free of pain and gazing out at the view of the Rockies she so loved. Marty’s last years were quiet and he battled poor health. He’d always struggled with high blood pressure and the final insult to this sharp-witted teller of stories was the dementia that robbed him of his memories and his ability to chat for hours on end. He played golf obsessively but badly. He danced beautifully but too rarely. He loved classical music and talk radio, bad food and fine wine. He adored his children and grandchildren and never met a stranger. Now he’ll spend eternity with Margaret, their mortal remains in one, final military formation at Fort Logan, in sight of the beautiful Rocky Mountains. He leaves his three children, as well as four grandchildren: Rachel, Rob, Will and Kate, and two and a half great-grandchildren. And many, many fond memories. Margaret Lucille Reynolds battled death and adversity almost from the moment she was born, on January 14, 1931 on a banana planation in Quirigua, Guatemala. Her father, Claude, worked for United Fruit company alongside his wife Mabel’s brother Floyd Avary. The children, Margaret included, explored the jungle. As a fat toddler, Margaret barely escaped the jaws of a 24-foot-long anaconda and, later, the clutches of Pancho the murderous spider monkey. But that lush tropical home also planted the seeds of a lifelong love affair with nature. Margaret’s early pets included a toucan, a coatimundi and a sharp-hooved deer she named Diana. The family returned home to south Texas when Margaret was young and there a defining tragedy of her life struck, when her father was killed by a mysterious gas explosion in a boarding house bedroom in Mercedes, Texas. The details were never cleared up, and the 6-year-old Margaret would be haunted by the trauma for the rest of her life. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The Depression hit the Rio Grande Valley hard, and Margaret’s mother Mabel was forced to send her three kids – Roy, Margaret and Jesse – to an orphanage for a year so they could be reliably fed. Margaret recounted for years her terror at being in the orphanage, hiding when “rich” families would come to look over the children for possible adoption, and trying to protect her younger brother Jesse from bullies. She remembers one lady with long, red fingernails who would stroke her cheeks and praise her shiny red curls. Mabel barely got the children back when she got on her feet, pleading with the orphanage to void a contract she hadn’t realized made the three available for permanent adoption. Each child was to be sent for a visit to Honduras, where Floyd was still working for United Fruit. Margaret’s turn came just before German U-boats started patrolling the Caribbean and U.S. coasts. She ended up there until the war ended, perfecting her Spanish and bonding with her beloved Uncle Floyd and Aunt Arlene. Life back in Harlingen was never easy. Mabel expected Margaret to keep house while she labored at low-wage jobs to support the family. Luckily, there were not one but two loving grandmothers who taught Margaret Southern manners, cooking and sewing skills. She never mastered pie crusts or biscuits, but could whip up a feast from a few leftovers, a ripe tomato from the garden and the last dusting of flour from the canister. Margaret was a dedicated student, reading voraciously and spending her nickels at Saturday afternoon movies. She worshiped movie stars from Bette Davis to Claude Raines, knew every hit on the radio and mastered every dance step of the 40s. She grew to closely resemble Judy Garland, then a mega-star, and played that role to the hilt with her expressive brown eyes, trim figure and tiny, upturned nose. It didn’t hurt that she could sing like a bird. Margaret was popular at Harlingen High School and was in demand for dates. She flashed her red hair and movie-star smile, and boys swooned. But inside, she was deeply shy and always conscious of her family’s extreme poverty. Margaret’s dream was to move to New York or another big city and become a famous newspaper reporter. She longed to travel and see the world and even won a scholarship. But her mother feared it was impractical, and Margaret was sent to Texas A&I in Kingsville to study home economics. In the end, she only remained for a year before she was ordered back home to work and help support the family. But she aspired to escape the hard life in South Texas, speaking over and over into a tape recorder to lose her Texas twang, mastering fine literature, history and geography and saving every penny she could. Margaret met and married the scion of a prominent local family, Nathan Berry, and they struggled to run businesses together. Her son, Nicky, gave her solace and Margaret embraced motherhood fiercely. When she and Nathan divorced, it divided their family and created rifts that would last for decades. Determined to make it on her own, Margaret set up house on her own with Nicky and struggled to support herself and her young son. She worked at Ferguson Motor, helping to route trucks around the country. Then she met Marty Fox on a blind date. No one who knew them would have put that pair together. Marty was a snob for tall, busty blondes and Margaret was tiny, just under 5 feet 2, with red hair and a temper to go with it. And she preferred rich, charming Texans. But the pair hit it off and he swept her off to Denver to get married, with only his own family in attendance, at the Eisenhower Chapel at Lowry Field. The date was May 15, 1958. To Margaret’s chagrin, Marty hauled her off on a Colorado fishing trip for their honeymoon. Soon after, they were posted to McConnell Air Base in Wichita, and just under a year after they were married, their first daughter Margaret was born. They called her Midge. Margaret embraced her role as an officer’s wife, learning to entertain, volunteering at suitable charities such as the base thrift shop and joining the officer’s wives clubs at each posting. She hosted endless cocktail and dinner parties, helping to support her husband’s career by charming superior officers – and their wives. She felt the pressure to have a new gown for each of the many occasions that military life required and became expert at sewing her own stunning outfits and finding new ways to style her long, thick auburn hair. And after her youngest daughter Marta was born, she spent hours designing and sewing matching outfits for the three children – one blonde, one brunette and her red-headed son Nicky. Marty’s long absences on flight duty taxed Margaret’s patience, and she lived in constant fear for the whole family as he knew better than anyone how close the country came to war and disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis and other Cold War face-offs. Unable to discuss the top-secret revelations he brought home, she packed the family station wagon and readied to literally head to the hills in case the worse happened. One of her favorite pastimes was to park at the end of the runway when they were posted to Beale Air Force Base in California, watching the B-52s take off. She loved how their heavy, engine-laden wings lifted as the lumbering bombers caught the air. Once, she noticed an ugly, black airplane slipping in among the procession of bombers. It was the then super-secret SR-71, and she was shocked when the Air Police arrested her in her station wagon packed with children, and held her until Marty could be dispatched to bring them all home. Probably the most fun Margaret ever had was when Marty was posted to England. Finally, she could indulge in her dream of world travel. She insisted on living “on the economy” and spent weeks scouring the Essex countryside for just the perfect house. She found it in the tiny, isolated village of Coggeshall. Royal Oak Cottage was 400 years old, sitting on a cobblestoned street, home to a famous painter’s widow who had to move into senior care. It was perfect. She made headed straight for the local antique stores, thrilled to befriend her very first gay couple – they were called homosexuals back then – and the town’s dignitaries. She and Marty found the pub culture suited them very well, and they adopted a traveling Welsh cricket team, who taught them to drink warm lager, came over and sang loudly in their living room, and caroused late into the evening hours. Marty’s status as a major brought him invitations from the local landed gentry, and they reveled in gatherings at lordly manors where they ate off 300-year-old porcelain and drank from antique Venetian stemware. Margaret horrified the local greengrocers by demanding the tops of turnips to make Southern-style turnip greens and imported the ingredients to make Mexican feasts for her new and wondering English friends. She upset the social structure by embracing the humble neighbors across the street alongside the colorful but impoverished Sir Francis Baines, a traveler-turned-eccentric who was a local celebrity. Her lifelong close friend Margaret Head, a former Army nurse, introduced them to Paddy Jones, a mercenary helicopter pilot whose life sounded like a real James Bond’s, even if he couldn’t have looked farther from the part. She dressed Nicky in Carnaby Street fashion, dolled herself up in tweeds and cashmere sweaters and filled her house with antiques. She visited every castle and church she could get to. She became an expert in British royal history and especially the Tudors. She’d argue to the death that Richard III could not have been the monster Shakespeare made him out to be and would have loved, loved, loved to have lived to see his remains dug out of a parking lot in 2013. Even as she threw herself into life, Margaret battled depression. It was her enemy her entire life and cast a shadow on even the most joyful moments. And as fun as life with Marty was, there were very hard times – none more so than the year he spent in Vietnam. Margaret was terrified he would be killed. He brought the family to Denver for safekeeping near his own family, and Margaret immediately joined a local Baptist congregation for the support, while taking the children regularly to the Mother Cabrini Catholic shrine nearby to light candles and pray for their father’s safety. Margaret was deeply spiritual, but she made practical use of organized religion, taking equally from all the Christian faiths, believing strongly in ghosts and reincarnation, and mastering the elements of Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology. In Charleston she took on the local history and found her caring side, volunteering at a VA hospital. There she tenderly held the hands of grievously injured veterans and listened with endless patience to their stories. Margaret traveled as far and as frequently as she could, visiting China twice, Greece, Germany, Spain, Austria, Egypt, Italy, Canada, Mexico and returning to her beloved England as often as possible when her daughter Midge lived there. For her 70th birthday she returned to her birthplace of Guatemala. She was furious when Marty wouldn’t let her visit Midge, a journalist posted to wartime Lebanon. She adored animals and hand-trained every fox, raccoon, skunk and squirrel on her property. She attracted so many birds with her feeders that the Audubon Society asked to visit. An entire herd of mule deer made the yard their home. Stray cats brought her their kittens and sick dogs came to her for comfort. She planted so many trees they grew to block her view, and their property blooms in the springtime with lilacs and Russian olives that should not be able to survive at that altitude. And despite a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer, Margaret fought to grab every scrap of fun she could, joining a clinical trial to help cancer patients who might follow her and taking one final trip to Italy’s Amalfi coast with her daughters and grandchildren, climbing every last stone step to enjoy an evening dish of gelato and glass of Prosecco. Margaret’s last great passion was genealogy and she found she was an expert researcher. She tromped through cemeteries, taking pictures of headstones; waded through the National Archives to find hard evidence of Civil War and Revolutionary War ancestors, and proved that her forebears had arrived in North America in the 1620s. She also found the stories behind the dull names and dates and collected – and shared – photographs and other images of long-lost relatives. Perhaps the greatest gift she gave her children was her very strong belief that death was nothing to be feared. It was a great comfort to her grieving family to know that while she may not have chosen to leave the world so soon, she was not afraid of what lay beyond.