Frank Armentani on January 3, 1968, upon his return home from Vietnam.

Where is the Chair?

My wife (caregiver) and I landed in Florida on a US Airways flight. It was late morning and as always we had to wait until everyone was off the plane. My wife went out to the area where my power chair would be next to the entrance of the nose of the plane. I was still waiting for the aisle chair. Everyone left the plane, including the pilot and the on board staff. I was alone. The next person that entered the plane was a new pilot. He said the weather in Philadelphia is great and we should have no problems flying you there. I told him I was still waiting to get off. I am not leaving. I just landed here. I told him I was waiting for an aisle chair to get off the plane. He went out and found an aisle chair. He brought it on himself. When we got me out to where my wife was waiting, my chair was there but it had no power. I told the pilot I am stuck here in my chair until the problem is fixed. He looked over to an area near the exit and said do you need batteries for this chair. I said yes. He said they are over there. He got them and they figured out how to put them in the battery area. Finally we had power and we were able to go. Only one last problem, when we reached the baggage area our luggage wasn’t there. It took us so long to get there the baggage went to the security office. We found this out by asking a guard.