LITTLE ROCK — Ira Quinton Norwood Sr., a former pistol and rifle instructor and a 31-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, died Thursday of complications from multiple strokes at his home in Beebe.
He was 88.
Born in 1919 on a farm in San Augustine County, Texas, Norwood was trained by his father as a young man to fire rifles with precision.
"Because country living meant bringing home fresh game, his father trained all of his sons how to be real accurate with rifles," said Ira Quinton Norwood Jr. "He picked up pistols as a result of that when he was in the military."
Norwood, who had four brothers and three sisters, learned to fly as a teenager and earned a civilian's pilot license in his early 20s. Norwood had a daredevilish streak, Norwood Jr. said.
"According to some of his friends, he would take on a dare, no matter what it was," Norwood Jr. said.
Norwood Jr. recalled his father's friends telling him, "We dared your father to drive a [Ford] Model T up a pine tree, and he tried to." It ended "with the Model T on top of him."
Norwood, along with three of his brothers, joined the military in the 1940s during World War II. He spent most of the war working security details around the country with the U.S. Army Air Corps (now the Air Force).
Near the end of the war, the Air Corps asked for volunteers with civilian pilot licenses, and Norwood flew numerous missions in the Pacific, some ofwhich he was never able to talk about.
Even about being wounded, "He never opened his mouth," said his second wife, Zona Norwood. "If it was classified, he didn't talk about it at all. I don't even know where he was injured, just that he was."
Norwood, who was married once before, met Zona when she was a nurse at Laughlin Air Force Base near Del Rio, Texas, in 1964.
Even in his personal life, Norwood was often quiet, his son said.
"He was the type of person that responded to you if you asked him a direct question," Norwood Jr. said. "He wasn't the type to volunteer information or, early in his career, show emotion."
Norwood returned from the war in 1946, and after a twomonth leave decided to make a career in the military.
He served as a provost sergeant at several Air Force bases around the country and served a couple of stints overseas. During that time, his interest in precision pistol shooting grew, and he eventually became a shooting instructor.
Norwood retired from the Air Force in 1970 as a chief master sergeant and worked as a landscaper near San Antonio, Texas.
"We had a creek, and he put in some dams and enlarged a little pond," his wife said. "We bought a farm, and he raised cows. He used them for income, but he made pets out of all of them."
The couple moved to Arkansas in 2001, when Zona Norwood's sister, who lived in Beebe, developed cancer.
Arkansas, Pages 31 on 05/18/2008