Charles "Chic" Burlingame III showed early on his interest in planes and flying. As a 6-year-old, he built a model airplane from scrap lumber and posed for a photograph taken by a family member in 1955. Burlingame realized his dream of flight as an adult, posing for a photograph in the cockpit of a 757. His life ended when the American Airlines flight he was piloting crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

BEAUMONT _ Sculptor Ron Petitt was flattered when the woman called from New York and offered him a commission, but planned to turn it down.

Petitt, who grew up in Beaumont but now lives in Colorado, had been working on a demanding project. The former Vietnam vet and artist who specializes in military figures was sculpting four life-size works for the 101st Airborne Division National Monument: male soldiers from World War II, Vietnam and Desert Storm, as well a contemporary female aviator.

The last thing he wanted was another big job.

And then he saw the photo.

The vintage black-and-white image, taken in England in 1955, captured a 6-year-old boy, standing with head slightly bowed, a large wooden airplane propped against his shoulder.

As a surprise for his parents, the child had gathered up scrap pieces of wood from the alley behind the house and, without any help, nailed them together to form an airplane, complete with propellers. On the wings, scrawled in a child's hand, were three letters.

USA.

Forty-six years later, on Sept. 11, 2001, the boy who loved airplanes was among 189 people who died when terrorists wrestled control of American Airlines Flight 77 and slammed it into the side of the Pentagon.

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Charles Burlingame III, known to everyone as Chic (pronounced "chick") graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, was an aircraft carrier-based fighter pilot for eight years, flew commercial planes for American Airlines for 22 years and spent a year and a half working for the Lockheed Corporation.

He remained in the naval reserves for 17 years, then volunteered to be reactivated during the Gulf War. He was assigned to the Pentagon, where he worked for the Assistant Secretary of Defense.

"Chic would have given anything to be flying in the Gulf War," said his sister, Debra Burlingame during a telephone interview from her home in New York earlier this month. "But he was 41 then and they would have had to go through quite a list of reserve pilots before they got to him."

Chic was at the controls of Flight 77 when terrorists hijacked the plane. One thing is for certain, Debra Burlingame said, Chic would have done anything to prevent the plane from crashing into the building where he once worked and that stands as a symbol of the country he loved and served.

"If he couldn't save that plane, no one could," Debra said.

At Burlingame's memorial service, his best friend and fellow Annapolis graduate Bart Whitman said to Debra, "Wouldn't it be great if we could have that picture made into a life-sized sculpture?"

Debra thought it was a wonderful idea.

"This was such a great image, with a Norman Rockwell quality," Debra said, "even for people who didn't know who this little boy was. It has this universal theme of a young child aspiring to greater things _ The airplane is emblematic of men and women dreaming of flying and reaching beyond their grasp. It's a heroic archetype."

Finding out who the little boy would grow up to be made the image even more poignant, Debra said.

"One of the things I love about that picture is the expression on his face. You can see he's clearly tickled about what he's done, but he's a little shy about showing it off. That was what Chic was like in life. He led a flamboyant life _ but I never heard him brag. He was not the kind of guy who talked about what he would do. He just went out and did it."

Ron Petitt poses with a tabletop-sized sculpture of Chic Burlingame as a boy with his model airplane. Petitt was inspired to create the sculpture by a family photograph of Burlingame.

Her brother was "unabashedly patriotic," she said.

"At a time when people considered flag-waving a pejorative, he was very proud of our country. He believed in service. It's all he'd wanted to do. It infused virtually everything he did in life. He was inspired by the history of this country and he wanted to make a contribution."

When the war in Iraq began, Debra started contacting families of young American servicemen who died there to offer her condolences. She didn't want to be intrusive, so she would find addresses through associations and local churches, then write them.

"I wanted to let these families know that I understood and appreciated and was grateful above all for the sacrifice their loved ones had made on behalf of our country. And that it meant a great deal to me as Chic's sister. I felt a profound connection."

While searching the Internet to locate a serviceman, she ran across photos of Ron Pettit's military sculptures.

"I was bowled over. I thought, this is the one who is going to do Chic's sculpture. To find out that Ron is not only incredibly talented, but that he is a Vietnam vet was the icing on the cake. I knew he would have the right commitment and would understand this project."

The Burlingame family contacted Petitt and asked him to sculpt a tabletop piece and a life-size sculpture.

He said yes.

"When I saw this photograph, that was the deciding factor, emotionally," Petitt said. "I knew I was going to end up doing it."

The family set up the nonprofit Patriot Dreams Foundation and is seeking corporate, public and private sponsorships for the sculptures.

Debra Burlingame said she would like to see the sculptures in Washington D.C., the Pensacola Naval Air Station, "where every naval aviator begins his career," and the Top Gun school in Miramar, California.

The foundation will sell small, tabletop-sized version of the statue. All monies raised by the foundation will go toward college scholarships for students enrolled in ROTC programs who are pursuing military careers.

"Most of the scholarships that are offered currently are to academic stars, students who are MIT and Harvard bound," Debra said. "We will be looking for student who come from poor families who can't afford the top schools, who don't necessarily perform well on standardized tests but have good academic records and have exhibited the type of character that indicates they will be superb officers."

Chic, who visited high schools and talked to students about a career through the naval Academy, helped them with the application process and mentored them during their careers, would approve, Debra said.

"He would love this. It's grooming future officers who will be doing exactly what he did, which is serve their country."

While she is committed to preserving her brother's memory and life work, Debra said she understands that he is but one of many whose families suffered great loss.

"There were thousands who perished that day. He would be the first to say each was valuable and dearly important to their families."

For more information about Patriot Dreams Foundation, write Patriots Dreams Foundation, P.O. Box 3498, Mount Vernon, NY, 10553.

For more information on Ron Petitt's work, contact him at (970) 231-6690, or visit his Web site at www.airborneart.com.

Debra Burlingame, along with her brothers Brad Burlingame and Mark Burlingame will be featured on a live afternoon broadcast from the Pentagon on MSNBC as part of the 9/11 second anniversary coverage. The broadcast is set to take place between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.

Reach this editor at:

(409) 838-2808

mailto:jmcbride@hearstnp.com