HISTORY OF THE AIRBORNE LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSOCIATION

DON BACHALI

ISBN 10: 149518806X / ISBN 13: 9781495188060

Published by DON BACHALI, 2016

About this Item

SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR WITH A NICE INSCRIPTION ON THE FRONT PAGE~AN EXTREMELY CLEAN AND BRIGHT UNMARKED COPY OF THIS BOOK.

Seller Inventory # 53867

Bibliographic Details

• Title: HISTORY OF THE AIRBORNE LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSOCIATION
• Publisher: DON BACHALI
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 149518806X
• ISBN 13: 9781495188060
• Binding: PAPERBACK
• Condition: VERY GOOD
• Signed: SIGNED
• Seller catalogs:
  • BIOGRAPHY

About this title

Synopsis

Once, while riding with a member of the Kansas City Police Department, Donald Bachali spotted a suspected burglar ducking into a shed to evade police.

From 500 feet in the air, he knew no one left the shed, even when police couldn’t find the suspect upon initial inspection.

“We knew he was in there,” Bachali said. “There was an old car in there, and in the early days, you could raise the hood and you could get down inside where the engine was. He was hiding in the engine area. They finally started inspecting the car and they found him. It’s just crazy things that happen.”

For the St. Joseph-born man, what started as a position with the ROTC at the University of Kansas eventually led to a civilian job with Hughes Helicopters and a ground-level part in starting the helicopter patrol program with the Kansas City Police Department in the 1960s and 1970s. Earlier this year, Bachali, assisted by his wife Irma, published “The History of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association: My Personal Journey” about his experiences.

“I was with the original group and there are not many of us left from the late 1960s. I’ve waited for a policeman or a deputy sheriff to sit down and pen this, and nobody ever has,” he said. “I had a lot of material that I’d kept over the years. I still knew a lot of the policemen who had the materials, so I was able to collect a lot of the data. Plus I’d kept a diary.”

After attending St. Joseph Junior College, Bachali attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, to study architecture. He joined ROTC and started his aviation career before graduating with his degree in architecture in 1961.

He applied for Army helicopter training his senior year of college and was accepted, attending training in Georgia, Texas and Alabama before being stationed in Okinawa, Japan. He served in Vietnam before returning to Fort Rucker, Alabama, to serve as an instructor.